> > So, if you're in my boat, or you were, tell me:
> > are these the best years?

Sam,

Am I right in concluding

"Don't waste your life wondering if it will or could be different"

?

This seems to be the essence of this thread, maybe except for Mike Dikks. As I read it, a conclusion might be

"Don't take any crap from anyone who tries to run your life"

Not that I would want the messages condensed, but I felt the need for a conclusion, something to hold on to for times to come. BTW, I second both advices, but would like to add that, if you someday think that your life would have been better if only [insert appropriately], then remember: "You can't possibly have the faintest clue!". Which reminds me of a facinating piece which I read in the paper. Basically, it described the influence of the weather on world history. It concluded that this influence alone renders any deterministic historical theory (their example was marxism) wrong. I particularly remember two examples. The first is Djenghis (I think it was) Khans attempts at invading Japan. Twice, the enormous and vastly superior mongolian fleet was destroyed by tyfoons. Think: What would Japan be like today, if they had been conquered by the mongolians. They would probably have become muslims, thus pilgrimating to Mecca, thus possibly even meeting europeans. There went the special Japanese culture down the drain! The second is D-day. Apparently, the weather in the English Channel is quite fierce during the summer, but Eisenhowers metereologists predicted a window of calmness of something like 3 days, where the invasion would be possible. Think: What would the world be like if Hitler had had the weaher on his side? On second thought: Don't think! What I really meant to say is that the universe unfolds chaotically. The definition of chaos is that an infinitely small (note the word infitely. We are talking butterflies flying the opposite way round a tree. In Johannesburg) differences evolve exponentially (that has also been discussed at RinkForum!) to the point where they alone are the reason thousands of boats are destroyed in the Korean Sound by tyfoons. If you had done something differently five years ago, there's no way of telling how it would have influence life, the Universe and everything. Try to beleive in what you do.

Jul"Oops... Chris, all you really need is the stuff at the beginning and at the end"ian