Tuesday 9 August 2011

The Lord Is Willing And The Creek Don't Rise


I guess that all lives are filled with missed opportunities. The proverbial road not taken as it were.
 
Writers of science fiction and fiction have been talking about parallel universes and multi-verse for many years now. The premise is that for every choice that we make there is a reality that comes into being in which we didn’t make that choice. One of the best examples of this is the classic Christmas movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”. What would the world be like if you never existed?
 
So, for every choice that I have made or not made I guess, there is some other Ken dealing with the results of my indecision and/or bad decision. Heh, heh, heh...
 
I choose not to learn the guitar when I was a kid and have regretted that decision for most of my life. Not enough to learn or even to practice, which is a decision of sorts as well. I hope some alternate Ken decided to learn guitar or drums. Anything but the bagpipes.
 
When Louise and I first moved to Calgary there were almost no donut shops or even restaurants that were open past ten. I can remember talking about opening a donut shop, but we decided against it. Our way of thinking was that if there was a need for donut shops in Calgary, then there would be donut shops in Calgary. Now, there is a donut shop on every corner. We could have been the western distributors of coffee and cholesterol! Oh well, I still like going for a coffee and I imagine that I wouldn’t if I were up to my armpits in dough every day.
 
Louise once worked for a photo developing store, and the owner offered Louise a chance to buy the business. It would have been a stretch financially, but we would have had a viable business. I am just as happy that we didn’t take advantage of that opportunity with the advent of digital cameras. I could have lost it all with that business venture. Thank goodness I am a chicken-shit!
 
Last October I was in Toronto visiting Maegan and saw a woman wandering around the parking lot looking for her car. I thought that I could develop an app to find your car in a parking lot. From time to time I would remember this and promise myself that I would get on it, tomorrow. More than a few tomorrows passed and I finally decided to check the apps store and see if anyone else had had this idea. Yes, they did, but it was registered in July. If I had gotten off of the couch and focused, then I could have been the newest dot com millionaire. I tell myself that it isn’t making any money, so I don’t feel too bad.
 
I really have no regrets about these things. If I had made any choices other than I did, I wouldn’t have the life I have now. I wouldn’t have gotten married (hmmmm), had great kids (hmmmm), or grandkids, worked at the post office and met the good people there, and I wouldn’t have met most of my friends and acquaintances (hmmmm). I always took the path that made sense at the time, and I think I am the better for it.
 
I wish all of those other Ken’s the best and perhaps someday if the Lord is willing and the creek don’t rise, we just may meet at some “multi-verse” donut shop and get to swap lies.

2 comments:

  1. Had a friend open a donut shop in the late 80's in Airdrie and he had a great product and coffee, but not enough customers. He shut the door on Xmas Eve i988 and never opened again. He lost a far bit of coin and stuggled for a while afterwards. Today he is in real estate and I'm sure doing ok. B

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  2. Hard to believe that you couldn't make money with coffee and donuts. It was probably the name. He should have called his place "Jim Norton's"

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