Sunday, January 25, 2009
"If I knew then what I knew then...."
During this snowed-in month I've spent some time pondering the past, which is probably unhealthy. It's certainly unhealthy to review past decisions on the basis of hindsight. "If I knew then what I know now" is absolutely pointless. I did write about one such regret here: marrying the wrong type of woman, which simply couldn't have been avoided given the advice and information available at the time.
There is still one decision I should have made differently based on what I knew then: I should have enlisted in the Navy after high school instead of going to college. Before graduation I was in fact planning to enlist; I don't remember now why the decision faded away.
The Navy would have given me discipline and a sense of purpose and usefulness, which I needed badly, and it would have given me hands-on training in electronics, leading eventually to a solid career.
College gave me the opposite of both: it took away discipline, and pulled me away from the obvious career path into more abstract areas that didn't do me any good.
From available facts I could predict that I would likely fit into the Navy because my father, with very similar temperament and tastes, had enjoyed his WW2 Navy service.
And if the Navy had rejected me for physical inadequacy (which was definitely possible) I still would have been better off. The pressure of the draft would have disappeared, and thus the need for a college deferment and the attraction of hippie/leftist culture would also have disappeared. From that point I could have pursued a non-college career path. ¶ 4:30 PM
There is still one decision I should have made differently based on what I knew then: I should have enlisted in the Navy after high school instead of going to college. Before graduation I was in fact planning to enlist; I don't remember now why the decision faded away.
The Navy would have given me discipline and a sense of purpose and usefulness, which I needed badly, and it would have given me hands-on training in electronics, leading eventually to a solid career.
College gave me the opposite of both: it took away discipline, and pulled me away from the obvious career path into more abstract areas that didn't do me any good.
From available facts I could predict that I would likely fit into the Navy because my father, with very similar temperament and tastes, had enjoyed his WW2 Navy service.
And if the Navy had rejected me for physical inadequacy (which was definitely possible) I still would have been better off. The pressure of the draft would have disappeared, and thus the need for a college deferment and the attraction of hippie/leftist culture would also have disappeared. From that point I could have pursued a non-college career path. ¶ 4:30 PM
