QOTD - paying the piper

"We all pay for our choices, and whatever life we choose determines the kind of payment we make." EL Doctorow, American writer

An interesting quote from Ed Doctorow. Certainly food for thought.

I would embellish this (don't I always?). "Whatever life we choose, and the context of the society in which we choose it, determines the kind of payment we make." 

I chose to try to live with honor and integrity. In my youth, in the late-20th century in the USA, I made a pair of idealistic choices that were bound to rebound. I chose to pursue the arts rather than go to law school or Wall Street and, not surprisingly, paid with a battered ego and massive debt. I chose to hold out for a "soul mate," and paid by living an unshared life and never having children. Two major gambles, and both lost. 

So then I put away childish things. I chose to pay off all my debts, and I chose to work hard on behalf of those who hired me. My employers and my government did not make the same choices as I did. They all seem to be thriving; but the result of my choices is that I face every day with worry and uncertainty, and my future is tenuous. In the context of my own place and time, I would have to say that I chose wrong.

Quotes-of-the day from the 2014 Keep Calm & Carry On desk calendar