Stupid little boy

Looking back upon my life so far, I see a few moments that make me proud. I also see great heaping piles of things that I have said or done that are at best amusing, at worst simply awful.

Though I feel plenty mature at the moment, so did I then. Six months, six years, six decades from now, some of my thoughts and actions of today may look just as stupid to me.

Wisdom is a will-o-the-wisp, a light ever dancing away into the darkness, never grasped fully by any mortal man or Woman.

I cannot use youth as a carte-blanche excuse, nor mere ignorance. And yet, they cannot be completely exonerated as accomplices.

"Crime is a young man's game," someone noted recently. So, as well, are stupid pranks, the tendency to walk off your job in a silly rage and the acquisition of bad habits that one battles for a lifetime.

It is a New Year. I have made resolutions. I am not of the crowd who refuses to do so because of the likelihood that they will break them. When I stop trying to self-improve, when I give up Death-of-A-Salesman-style on my dreams and determinations, I might as well head for the exit door of life.

I hope that I will be kinder this year, raise my voice less, waste less time, work harder, be better.

But I will surely at this time next year look back upon the annum and still wonder, "What in the WORLD was I thinking?"