I wonder if what I do is special or if its just something that anybody could do.  Maybe 'would' do is the right word.  Did I choose a life that others would want or is everybody so different that they all eventually fall into something special to them?  I know that in my case I spent many years of our married life trying to figure out just what I wanted to do and I went through a lot of different phases and jobs and periods before I got comfortable with what I ended up doing now for the past 36 years.  It wasn't until about 1975 after we got home from our 5 months in Japan that I settled in my mind how I wanted to make my living.  And even then it was kind of a compromise because even yet I haven't gotten it absolutely right.  I like to express it this way:  "I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up."  (But this will do until something better comes along.)  My life does meet most of the criteria that I have thought up over the years.  But it isn't perfect.  I could list lots of things that I would like to be able to do differently or things that I would love to eliminate.  But lots of those are things that can only be addressed in another life and in a better world.  So limiting myself to this time and this place I accept that there are things that I would like to have and do differently, but what I do have and do do isn't all that bad. What is work to one may not be play to another, but it it isn't really work either.  I learned early and often that physical labor isn't for me.  What I like to do some call 'busy work' but lots of little tasks with lots of details I find almost fun.  Work is a little like eating.  No matter how much you enjoy the taste of the meal before long you will be hungry again and need to eat.  So life becomes an exercise in repetition that can drive you crazy or become a satisfying routine depending on the attitude that you take.  I like that way that it is expressed in what is called 'The Serenity Prayer'.  GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE, COURAGE TO CHANGE THE THINGS  I CAN, AND THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. I hope that at my age I now have a little bit of all three.