As the present now will later be past....

Those old folk singers seemed to usually have a message worth paying attention to.  Yes, the times, they are a changin'.......Bob Dylan was right.

Perspectives adjust as your life experience changes.  Everything and everyone has the ability to make your point of view change and, if you can look at yourself honestly and openly, you can use the alterations in your perspective to grow and make yourself a better, stronger person; or you can choose to ignore everything that has made your life uncomfortable and refuse to grow and change because you are too afraid.

Whether you are two, twenty-two, or ninety-two, take your experiences and make them work for you.  That is what I have been working on.  I am more sure of who I am than at any point in my life.  I know it is a result of all I have experienced, the good and the bad.  I grew up in a family that had some privilege attached to its name.  I have been to funerals in which the caskets being lowered into the ground have belonged to my children.  I have laid in bed, too sick to reprimand my daughter, who was about to make some very stupid decisions of her own; which at some point will affect her perspective about how she views life.  I have meekly sat by and let people say and do unkind things to one another.  I have personally sat by and let myself be attacked for things that were extremely unfair because the attacker was too unwilling to look themselves in the eye and face the facts. The times, they are a changin.....

I will take responsibility for those things in life in which I had something to do with, for the abilities I have as well as the ones I will never be blessed with (yes mother, I will never be able to cook as well as you). But my shoulders just aren't big enough to take on the responsibility of things I had nothing to do with.  I am streamlining my life in such a way that some people might not like.  Right now, although I feel bad for those that haven't used their own life experiences to help them change their life/lives,  I hope they will somehow find the courage to do what they need to do to take control of changing their own lives.  I don't have what it takes to carry anyone along but myself.  I can help in some situations, but sadly I can' push buttons and make circumstances or outcomes change.

Similarly, when it comes to my perspective of how I can entertain myself, that too has changed.  What used to be the present now feels like the past (well because it is).  I am no longer able to golf or do the other types of physical activities that were my true passions.  The day I was told I could no longer scuba dive was a day I will never forget.  But I can choose things I have not yet tried and I am quite certain I will find something that be nearly as entertaining as those things I held onto so tightly for a very long time.

So, Bob Dylan, yes the times they are a changing.  For everyone that can look at their own perspectives in life:

"Admit that the waters
around you have grown

And accept that soon
you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'

Then you better start swimming
or your sink like a stone

For the times
they are a changin'."

Peace out...