What are you thankful for
I am writing this a couple of days before Thanksgiving. Once again, as I reflect on the past year, I have a lot to be thankful for. This year I am spending a lot of time thinking about my mother. She has been in the hospital for a week, and we don’t know what’s wrong yet. We know it is serious, and very possibly life threatening. It has been a hard week on the family because we haven’t had to deal with this before. I don’t remember her ever being sick, even for a day. So it hadn’t occurred to any of us that we might have to deal with losing her. My thoughts have been filled with how much she has influenced my life. One of my wife’s most used statements is that I am my mother’s son.
I now realize how true that is.
As always I am thankful for having a wife who works very hard at keeping me happy. Most of the time I take her for granted, but when I hear my buddies talk about issues with their wives it makes me feel very lucky that I have her in my life. It seems like all other decisions we make during our life pale when compared to the choice we make for a mate. With a 50 percent failure rate, apparently some of us don’t choose as wisely as we should.
That being said, there are plenty of good reasons that we might make a bad decision in this matter. The first one, I think, has to do with the age most of us get married. Let’s face it, as a young adult most of us are ill prepared to make wise lifelong decisions. We have no concept of what living together in a relationship over a 50 year period entails. Most of us have had little practice at making truly important choices. This may surprise some women, but the fact is most guys get married out of boredom (yes, I really said that, and yes, it is a fact). I am not suggesting that there aren’t other reasons. I never met a guy who didn’t think he loved the woman he married, and unfortunately most young men have differing opinions on what true love is. But when talking to any guy about why he got married the same reason invariably is given.
After the normal, “I wanted a family,” or, “I knew she was the one,” or the occasional, “I don’t know what I was thinking,” comes the common explanation.
“All my buddies went away to school,” or, “When I got out of college all my buddies were married.” Nine out of 10 guys throw this in somewhere in the conversation about why they got married. It is true as a species we are social animals, and we need relationships to be happy. We mirror other mammals in this pattern. Young males tend to hang out together until it is their turn to choose a mate, so nature dictates the process to a degree.
Maybe there should be a government program to help with the failure rate in marriage. A Department of Marriage. It could have a Cabinet Secretary, and thousands of employees to deal with the problem. They could develop an apprenticeship program that all applicants had to participate in. There could be standardized tests that everyone had to pass to get a marriage certificate. Of course all the employees would have to be educated, and well qualified, and they would also need a union to protect their rights. With enough money they might even reach the heights of success attained by the Department of Education, and all the other departments we have because we needed them so badly, and they truly are the solution to all our problems.
Catch you later, Rick
I now realize how true that is.
As always I am thankful for having a wife who works very hard at keeping me happy. Most of the time I take her for granted, but when I hear my buddies talk about issues with their wives it makes me feel very lucky that I have her in my life. It seems like all other decisions we make during our life pale when compared to the choice we make for a mate. With a 50 percent failure rate, apparently some of us don’t choose as wisely as we should.
That being said, there are plenty of good reasons that we might make a bad decision in this matter. The first one, I think, has to do with the age most of us get married. Let’s face it, as a young adult most of us are ill prepared to make wise lifelong decisions. We have no concept of what living together in a relationship over a 50 year period entails. Most of us have had little practice at making truly important choices. This may surprise some women, but the fact is most guys get married out of boredom (yes, I really said that, and yes, it is a fact). I am not suggesting that there aren’t other reasons. I never met a guy who didn’t think he loved the woman he married, and unfortunately most young men have differing opinions on what true love is. But when talking to any guy about why he got married the same reason invariably is given.
After the normal, “I wanted a family,” or, “I knew she was the one,” or the occasional, “I don’t know what I was thinking,” comes the common explanation.
“All my buddies went away to school,” or, “When I got out of college all my buddies were married.” Nine out of 10 guys throw this in somewhere in the conversation about why they got married. It is true as a species we are social animals, and we need relationships to be happy. We mirror other mammals in this pattern. Young males tend to hang out together until it is their turn to choose a mate, so nature dictates the process to a degree.
Maybe there should be a government program to help with the failure rate in marriage. A Department of Marriage. It could have a Cabinet Secretary, and thousands of employees to deal with the problem. They could develop an apprenticeship program that all applicants had to participate in. There could be standardized tests that everyone had to pass to get a marriage certificate. Of course all the employees would have to be educated, and well qualified, and they would also need a union to protect their rights. With enough money they might even reach the heights of success attained by the Department of Education, and all the other departments we have because we needed them so badly, and they truly are the solution to all our problems.
Catch you later, Rick
Published: November 20, 2011
