I’m not sure if it’s the nearer to death one becomes as one gets older in age, or that I realize now that I am beyond dying young and with no assurance to grow older than what I already am, but I find myself weighing each decision I make with more gravity and spending more time wondering if it is the “right” thing to do. I find that, instead of savoring my time and experiences, I have fallen into the trap of overthinking the value of everything.

The problem with the pondering and assessments is that it rarely leads to more time “doing”.

I feel some important things have fallen to the wayside or have slowed down to speeds unacceptable.

Not unacceptable because of no other reason than I want to do more stuff. Not as a rush against a two-minute clock or anything. Instead it’s more like: “Why do I care what it’s worth if it’s what I want to do?”

My writing has slowed down. This blog is a great indicator of a general lack of committing enough time to wrte as much as I want to. One of my main goals for this blog is to leave a record of my thoughts. Remember when Blog meant Web Log, or Web Journal. Now too many times, Blog means marketing. Not exactly why I started my first blog years ago and not exactly enough reason to make me want to write posts. When I blog, I blog because I want to.

I write posts in my head all the time while riding my motorcycle; however, it’s not very condusive to taking notes, or leaving behind a posted entry. I write posts in my head because I enjoy it. How have I allowed life to take place of writing posts for real? I know it’s mostly for me anyway. It’s time to write more blog posts. If any of you read them, I hope you enjoy them. And if you like the posts, maybe I can interest you in a book. *Eye brows raising up and down*. Seriously, do as you wish, that’s what I’m doing.

And Fishing. I really need to fish more.

Ice-off is coming soon to my favorite lake. I will be fishing it. And then I will not stop until it’s frozen again. I will set a goal of how many times my waders need to be wet each month. There’s always something more important than fishing. At lease in other’s eyes, and yesterday in my own. That has to change.

There was a time that I dreamed of being a guide. The big reason I decided not to pursue that dream was that I worried about feeding the family and the thought of leading others to that fish of a lifetime and then being the one at the end of the net and not at the end of the fly rod just didn’t seem right.

And with that dream lost, I somehow also gave up my effort to be as good as a guide, to think it was important to keep the pulse of my waters,  to be the expert, to always know where the fish were, what were they hitting, and to always be into many huge fish. I let things more important dictate skilled fishing wasn’t worth the time and effort.

Life is short. It flies by so fast. And when one is looking at the last stretch of forty, one never knows just how short the remainder might be.

But a lot can be stuffed in a very little. And if God grants me anywhere near as many years in the future as he has in the past, and I fill, no, stuff them with the things I want to do, I have a feeling I won’t feel cheated or wanting.