So what have you learned in the past decade? Here's some of what I learned:

  • Don't let the moving company pack your stuff. You'll be finding your stuff in the oddest of boxes two years after the fact.
  • Many smaller cities and towns don't have great pizza. Yet, Lubbock, Texas, of all places has very good pizza. Most of it New York style, but beggars can't be choosers.
  •  You can get good sparkling wine and champagne at Sam's Club and Walmart for New Year's Eve.
  • At some point trying to stay up for New Year's is over rated. Sleep is better.
  • Worrying too much about things doesn't help. Those things usually work themselves out regardless of whether you worry or not.
  • No matter how much you promise yourself you won't gain the weight you lost back, it's a hard promise to keep.
  • The days of a good $12,000 car that isn't a roller skate and will last 100,000 miles is over.
  • Garth Brooks, Styx, and Foreigner all deliver a kick ass concert experience.
  • Everyone bags on Olive Garden for not being real Italian. Yet, the parking lot always seems full. (And oh, many of us will drive to Columbia to get our Olive Garden fix. Must be the free bread sticks.)
  • It's hard for juries to convict someone for drunk driving because most of us have done just that some point. It's one of the few crimes where members of the jury, could very easily be the defendant.
  • There's a point when we drink where many of us think we're OK to drive. We're not. We're just lucky we haven't gotten pulled over or worse. (Helping the Texas Game Wardens train for drunk driving stops taught me that. Not only did I get free booze and a ride home, I got that sobering lesson.)
  • Purple Rain isn't that great a film. It's a train wreck actually. That said, the fact that Prince got it made and made it a hit, very impressive. And the soundtrack. Killer.
  • Ferris Bueller is right: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Oh, and the older you get the faster life moves.
  • The job you have is less important than the people who you work with. Great co-workers can make a crappy job great. Crappy co-workers can make a great opportunity suck.
  • Dental work can be painful, but makes eating so much more enjoyable in the long term.
  • Can anyone tell if they're actually using the progressive lenses in their eyeglasses? Everyone I know that has them, including myself, really can't say. Maybe?
  • There is more than corn in Indiana, and everything is bigger in Texas. I know, I've lived in both states.
  • Missouri sunrises are spectacularly beautiful.
  • There's something special about going to a concert at the state fair and sitting in the grandstand. It's a one of a kind concert experience that's getting more rare to find every year.
  • Vinyl records just sound better.
  • Most of us don't really care about sound fidelity when it comes to music. If we did there's no way we'd listen to music on our phones, or find digital downloads acceptable.
  • It's not the price of the flight between two major cities that causes your airline ticket price to soar. It's that last leg between Dallas and whatever small city you're flying into that will cost a small fortune.
  • There is no direct highway access between Lubbock and Dallas.
  • There is no convenient highway access between Sedalia and Davenport.
  • You can get between Lafayette, Indiana and downtown Chicago by the Chicago skyway in one hour and fifty seven minutes.
  • Need a new power cord for your cell phone? Hit the dollar store, they're cheaper there than the convenience store.
  • Texas Toll Tags work on the Kansas Turnpike.
  • Feed the meters in Topeka's business district. That said, first time offenders get let off the hook with a warning.
  • Blog posts like this, that I think will only take a short time to write always take two or three times as long to write.

And finally, as John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while making other plans." If someone had told me a decade ago I'd be living in West Central Missouri in 2020 I probably would have laughed. My wife Kathy and I had other plans, and they didn't include Missouri in 2020.

Life happened. And here we are. Thinking about the past decade, and even the past couple of years, I think I've figured out what my resolution will be for the '20s. I'm going to try and live more in the present. More in the moment. The happiest times of the past ten years for me was when I took the time to be in the present. To let things unfold around me and enjoy them. At times this can be hard to do when you have goals and want to make plans. It can also be difficult when life happens and gives you lemons. But I'm going to try it and see where I wind up in 2029.

What did you learn in the past decade? Tell me below.

 

 

 

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