Embracing the ordinary

I always buy myself a book around my birthday & I enjoyed Michael Foleys 'The age if absurdity' & this latest one is proving to be a great read too, here's an excerpt;

"What happened? Where did it go wrong?

After much lengthy pondering and questioning there arises the familiar lament of the no-longer young: If only I could go back and start again, knowing what I know now, I would do it all differently.

Like many another of a certain age, I have felt disappointed, disillusioned and trapped, caught up in obligation and weighed down by burdens, rapidly running out of time, hope, opportunity and energy. Consumed by regrets, resentfully blaming
others for everything, I too have yearned to go back, begin again, and do everything differently, with the principal difference of course being more frequent, varied and exciting sex.

But after a while it came to me that my circumstances were entirely of my own choosing and not the fault of anyone else and that in fact I had had a good life, a privileged life, even a charmed life, certainly a life as mysterious and rich as any other.

This brought a new regret. In the course of all the brooding and whining and demanding and blaming, all the lethargy and fantasy and denial and grievance, much of my mysterious, rich and only life had gone by without my noticing it. And with this new regret came a new wish - to go back and begin again but, instead of doing it all differently, doing it all in exactly the same way, except this time paying it the full attention it deserved. But after another while I realised that this too was misguided.

There is no going back and regret is futile.

The crucial thing is to start paying attention now."

- Michael Foley

Guardian review