I was looking at my blog recently and I realized that I haven’t actually written about myself (which is what this blog used to be all about) lately. Then again, when I was 21 years old and started writing a blog, I had a different perspective on life than I do now. You can call it narcissism, selfishness, or just plain immaturity, but I certainly believed that the world revolved around me.

I assume that my attitude at 21 isn’t entirely different than what would be considered the norm for people in that age group. It is quite interesting where life takes you, though. When I was 21 years old, I was excited by the fact that I would someday have money. As an athlete in high school, all of my jobs were very part-time. It’s hard to put much money away when you need to put gas in your car, but the only source of income is one 8-hour shift at the local video store per week. As I think I’ve mentioned here before, the fact that the video store (which no longer exists) gave us checks every two weeks that may not always have cashed until a few days later didn’t help the cause. As a 21 year old, money was a means to an end. Money meant that I could get all of the things that I wanted in life. A new computer. A big screen tv. The latest and greatest videogame system and a handful of sports games. A cellphone with a (gasp!?!) color screen.

Time passed and I graduated from college. I got a job at a company I’m still working with (ACS) and started to make a little money. One thing that I didn’t realize when I was 21 was that a larger portion of my money went towards insurance, mortgage, electricity, water, garbage, and a car payment than I thought, but eventually I got the new computer, the big screen tv, more videogames than I had time to play, and (gasp!?!) a cellphone with a color screen.

I didn’t know what true happiness is. I knew a lot about material things that seemed to fill a temporary void that I was feeling. Before long, though, my big screen tv wasn’t good enough because it wasn’t a flat screen. My computer got slow. My videogames were replaced by the next year’s bigger and better model (although, coincidentally, EA continues to make Madden 2001 over and over again with different players). Of course, my cellphone with a color screen didn’t seem very cool once I saw a Blackberry or an iPhone. Does it seem amazing to everyone else that 10-years ago, we were impressed when another friend got a cellphone with a color screen? I know it isn’t a new thought, but sometimes it is crazy to sit back and be reminded of how ridiculously fast technology moves.

Five years ago, I started to date my future wife and life seemed to be much better. My happiness was increased exponentially this past June 10th, though, when my daughter was born and I just know I’m changed forever. I still have the urge to look at the new televisions when I’m in Best Buy. I know that if I stand over my daughter while wiggling my head with my tongue sticking out, I can almost always make my daughter laugh.

Happiness is seeing your kids smile.

By the way… in 2025, when my daughter tells me she doesn’t love me anymore because I won’t let her spend the weekend with her college boyfriend, someone remind me that I wrote this.