I shouldn't have done it, but I did

I'm sure we've all said this, some of us many times. Something seems like a good idea at the time but after we do it, we either regret it or wonder why we did it in the first place. People make lots of bad decisions in life. And every decision we make alters the course of our life. Whether we finish high school or not, whether we go to college, where we go to college, who we date, who we marry, how long we stay married if our marriage isn't good for us, what jobs we take, the list goes on and on. It's too bad we're not born with life maps that allow us to plot out each decision we make so we can see if our choices are taking us in a positive direction or a negative one. But we're not born with one of those and some people never think about creating one on their own. We typically find that these people don't have much good luck either. In fact, it seems they have a lot of bad luck because their life decisions weren't planned out or even thought out. They just acted on impulse or took the advice of someone else that got them where they are and they don't have a clue as to how to get out.

My own personal reason for writing this week's column using the title I did isn't nearly as dire as the things mentioned in the first paragraph, although I've had bad things happen in my life too. Most of the choices I made for myself have by and large impacted my life in a positive direction. Those choices that were dependent on the decisions made by others sometimes haven't turned out so well because we can't control what others think or do. In my whole life, I've only had one romantic relationship that didn't turn out the way I wanted it to and, of course, that's the one that haunts you forever! But some decisions made by others ended up hurting them more than they did me, even though that didn't seem possible at the time. People say that life is a crapshoot and to a large extent I guess it is, but we have the skills and the ability to alter the course of our life that we don't have in a casino game and to a lot of people, that makes all the difference in the world.

It's been a long academic year for me, in large part because of our decrease in students at MCC during the Spring semester. I like teaching large classes but my class sizes this semester were less than half of what they've been in the past. I thought maybe it was just me but, in talking with other faculty members, I discovered this malady to be the rule rather than the exception. The dedication and commitment of college students isn't close to being what it used to be either and that disturbs much of the faculty. So, because of much smaller class sizes and a general disinterest on the part of a lot of students to learn, it has not been the most productive and enjoyable of semesters.

Because of that, I did something yesterday I don't usually do. I bought a big ticket item on impulse. When I drove by Wagner Ford the other day, I saw three new Mustangs on their lot and the changes they went through from last year were impressive. So day before yesterday I test drove one and ended up buying it. It's a yellow Mustang GT with an interior that's more like an airplane cockpit than the interior of a car. In fact, it even has Ground Speed printed at the bottom of the speedometer.

It has a back-up camera, GPS, Sirius XM radio and Synch which allows a person to do things literally unheard of and unimagined just a few years ago. I drove it to Culbertson for lunch yesterday and discovered that it's fun to drive again.

The T-bird was a good car for me for several years but its utility had run its course and it was time for something to inspire me again. I would have preferred that that be a real-life human being but since that didn't happen, a mechanized version was better than nothing. So now I can call people or they can call me using voice commands without having to fumble around with a cell phone, I can listen to my favorite music all the time, the navigator will tell me every highway to take and every turn to make until I reach my destination and I can do all of this while the electronic system of the car keeps me a safe distance from vehicles around me. And new cars don't let you down or disappoint you like people sometimes do.

I was fortunate in having a former student of mine as the salesman and another former student as the Sales Manager. Because of that, I think we worked out a deal on the car that was satisfactory to both sides.

I always like to have things that others don't have. I guess I'm vain that way and I know that's not a good character attribute but it's one I've always had. There were only two T-birds in McCook while I had mine and now I have the only yellow 2015 Mustang and I promise you it's bright enough that you'll be able to see me coming.

It made me feel better to buy it. I hope that feeling lasts for awhile!