Open up any high school year book from any era. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that most of the Senior "writeups" (that's what they called them in my day) announce the writer's intention of pursuing higher education, some sort of trade, and ultimately chasing that golden ring. (both the metaphorical and literal one)

"Jackies gonna be a football star...Dianes debutante backseat, of Jackie's car"

Even in our get-rich-quick, microwave society, there are few 18 year olds that I know of who have to suddenly tap their home equity to pay off their credit cards, or scramble to find quality and affordable child care so that they can work two jobs. True, we all knew "that girl" in Homeroom who let one mistake derail her plans, but this is usually the exception rather than the rule.

Why do you think we speak wistfully of "the good old days" or lament "if only I knew then what I knew now"?
 
"Hold onto 16 as long as you can ... change is comin' round real soon make us women and men."

Perhaps that is our mind telling us that our lives up to this point, rather than being a progression of events leading us to this place, have become more of a random event ... the end result of a series of actions taken to fulfill whatever need or needs we had at a particular moment.

Now for the good news. Just as we were able to hit the "reset" button the Atari game we were playing became untenable, there is absolutely nothing stopping us from mentally returning to that place where life was a blank canvas. Ask any martial artist about the old axiom "Where the head goes, the body follows!"

The logical STARTing point for this awakening would be to STOP referring to the "good old days." Here's a news flash for you...the guy that coined the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20." was pretty damn smart. Things were NOT as easy as you remember, that guy/girl you let slip away may NOT have been the "one" and NO, you wouldn't have gone pro if you had just practiced harder. You did/did not do what you did/did not do because it's what you wanted to do when you did/did not do it. Cut yourself some slack. It's too late to uncut College Algebra, you cannot unmarry/undivorce him/her, you cannot get unfired, and you certainly cannot bear offspring under different circumstances. Your current condition can be reframed to fit WHO YOU ARE. It does not have to be the other way around.

The second destination on this journey might be to initiate the process of shedding all the things you have in your life that do not serve you, and weren't listed along with your Varsity Letter for Track, the Debate Team, and Student Council. That could be anything from the monster mortgage that you agreed to while intoxicated by new carpet fumes, the job you took "because you needed the money" (that fume habit gets expensive!), all the way to the significant other that will come around to your way of thinking "any day now."

Ask yourself, would I have listed these outcomes under that bad picture of me?

The third, ongoing, but certainly not final step in this process would be to, at least once a day, develop that 1000 yard stare and revisit who you really were. Add to that all the great stuff you picked up along the way (a'la Steve Martin's "all I need is this chair" scene in The Jerk), subtract the shoulda/coulda/woulda and it equals you re-grabbing the reins, just a few pant sizes bigger.

Throw that cap up in the air one more time......RESET!!!