(I realize this is really not a political blog, but I would like to share it with you anyway as it is very personal, so please bear with me. Thanks!)
I have made many mistakes in my life. I chose not to get a good education and so now, I am poor, as far as average living standards go that is. I also hurt others with my life choices. I know I would change just so many things if I could do it all over again, but unlike video games – which I love to play so much – there is no reset button for life.
I know there are many out there who are like me, who if given the opportunity, would push life’s reset button, back to an earlier time so that they could start over again and not make those same mistakes they made which altered their life in such a negative way.
I am sure many lost souls in prison would love to have a reset button so that they could go back and not commit the crimes they committed, that not only sent them to jail but hurt others in such tragic ways. Many murderers would choose not to kill and many thieves would choose not to steal. I realize that my regrets are not so profound but still, resetting my life back to an earlier time, I would do so many things differently.
One of those things is the way I treated my grandmother. She raised me for many of my childhood years and I just did not appreciate it, as I should have. I said some cruel things to her, mostly out of the despair of my own life. I watched her shed many tears over those hurtful things I said, which was out of the hurt I felt myself. Now that she has died and gone on to be with the Lord she worshiped so sincerely, I wish so much I could take all those mean things I said back.
I dropped out of school when I was 17 years old and moved out on my own. It was the mid-seventies, I had been bused across town to a school that was mostly black, and many of the black students seem to resent the fact that I was now going to their school. I had no problem with going to school with mostly black students, as one of my best friends was black who went to my mostly white school, so I got a taste of what he went through every day and it scared the hell out of me. Someone threw a pencil at me the first day of school and because of that incident; it was the last day I went to that school. I lost my education and faced a life of poverty from then on.
I allowed fear to rule my life, even though I suppose, if I would have hung in there, the black students at that school would have come to realize that I was not the threat they took me to be, the same as they were not the threat I took them to be.
It did teach me a valuable life lesson and that is not to allow fear to rule one’s life. Since that time, I have become friends with many black people, gone to church and worshiped with them, become roommates with a couple of them, and learned that they are so much like me, in so many ways. I had no reason to be afraid; we had so much in common.
Of course, I could sit and blame circumstances, and my own mother for my downfall and my lack of success but much of it is just my own fault for not looking beyond my circumstances as so many who came before me did. Abraham Lincoln studied by candlelight but went on to become the nation’s 16th president and one of the nation’s greatest presidents.
Many immigrants came here with nothing and faced great opposition from those already here, and yet they overcame all that stood in their way and started businesses that grew into large corporations, all because they faced down their fears and did not let their circumstances stand in their way. Hispanics now face some of that same opposition, some of them will make it, and some of them will fall by the wayside. All that separates all of us is our willingness to stand against the odds, the fear, and the hate, or to let it dictate our lives and like me, fail to see what potential lies ahead for those willing to stand firm.
All of us who are born into this world will face opposition, all of us will be tried by the fires of life and those fires will consume us or they will harden our resolve and make us strong. I wish I had made the right decisions in my life and not let so many things stand in my way, and if I had that reset button, if I could do it all over again, I would do so many things differently.
I meet many young people in my life and I try to pass on to them what I had to learn the hard way, but many just see me as just another old person who has no idea what they face, and it is true because every one of our lives are different. However, they must realize, if they are to succeed, that whatever their trials are, they must overcome and not let those trials drag them down. It is those personal trials put before them, which will determine their lives far ahead; how they deal with them will matter so very much when they reach my age and they have a chance to look back again.
Yes, I wish I could say that I do not regret anything and I do not need a reset button but unfortunately, I made so many wrong life choices. All I can hope for is a loving God who, with a merciful heart, will give me yet another life beyond these troubled shores, and hopefully, that reset button really does exist – after all.
This is a republish from my website: Fidlerten Place