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| C. Kevin Thompson |
Often, it’s about the things you could have done, but for some reason, never did. Like for me when I was in high school, I wish I would have known I could have stood on the sideline of a football field, held a clipboard, and wore a headset while I followed around a great college coach, to learn from him and eventually be ready to tackle that profession on my own. But I’m too old now.
Other times, we think about the things we did that we wish we could have or would have done differently. There are too many things for me to list here. Suffice it to say, hindsight is always 20/20, and even if I had it to do all over again, middle and high school would not be on that list. I do remember, though, my dad urging me at the age of eighteen to set aside twenty dollars a week and sock it away for retirement, come thick or thin, drought or plenty. More when you can. No less than that during the down times. Had I followed that advice, I’d have a minimum of $41,000 saved right now, and that doesn’t include the interest that would have accrued over all these years.
At other times, we think about the things you wish you would have started sooner. I wish I would have pursued my writing career sooner. I had the itch for years, but for whatever reason, I never pursued it until I was in my forties. Better late than never, I guess, but I often wonder how far along I’d be in my writing career if I had started sooner.
Do you do this? Take these little strolls down Memory Lane?
It’s in these times of contemplation when I’m reminded of the dinner scene in the movie, The Family Man, starring Nicolas Cage as Jack Campbell and Téa Leoni as Kate Reynolds. Jack and Kate are sitting in a high-end New York City restaurant, and Jack explains how he “feels like” he is living someone else’s life. How he used to be so sure of himself. And now, he’s unsure about everything.
Kate responds by saying that she too has wondered what kind of life she would have had if she hadn’t married Jack.
Jack replies, “And?”
Then Kate says this: “And then I realize I have just erased all the things in my life that I’m sure about. You…the kids…”
“Good things…” Jack says.
“Yeah,” Kate responds. Then she asks Jack, “What are you sure about?”
And his response? “I’m sure that right now, there is no other place I’d rather be than here with you.”
It’s easy to wish we could do it over. It’s easy to imagine what things would be like if we had chosen “the other path.” However, if we did, we’d give up everything we are sure about. The good things in our lives. And instead, we would fall prey to the lie that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. What we forget to remember is that when we climb over that proverbial fence, we take our decision-making process with us. We take our sins with us. So, even if we had it to do all over again, we’d still have regrets. They would just be new ones. We’d still make poor choices and end up wishing twenty years later we could do it all over again, again.
So, when does it stop, this wishing for a “do-over”?
It stops when we realize how blessed we are in the moment. A moment that took years, even decades to create.
When you have a spouse who loves you for who you are, even if you’re overweight. When you have a job that may not get you that million-dollar resort home in the Poconos, but it keeps a roof over your head on rainy days. When your children drive you up a wall sometimes, but bring you laughter and joy and a never-ending mountain of laundry. Yes, even the laundry is a blessing, for there are many adults who would wash twice the amount of clothes you have to do if it meant having a child to hold in their arms.
You see, the blessings that lead to a thankful heart come from what has already happened in your life and mine. We can be joyous for the future, for promises made, for things to come that can be counted on, like Jesus’s return and a Heavenly home, for example. But to be thankful, it has to be for things that have already occurred. Things that have been done for you, given to you, even happened to you beyond your control. When we wish for do-overs, we erase everything for which we should be thankful. It’s a truly selfish act, if you think about it. What made us, that which shaped and molded us into the people we are today, we now wish to wipe out because we—let’s admit it—want a better life? As if the one God has given us is somehow faulty and defective?
So, my friend, in this season of Thanksgiving, be truly thankful. For this very moment. And the next. And the next. For it is all you are truly sure about.
And give Him praise.
It’s easy to wish we could do it over. It’s easy to imagine what things would be like if we had chosen “the other path.” #seriouslywrite #encouragementforwriters via @CKevinThompson
When does it stop, this wishing for a “do-over”? #seriouslywrite #encouragementforwriters via @CKevinThompson
The Tide of Times
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| The Tide of Times |
(The Blake Meyer Thriller Series, Book 3)
A Perverse Tale. A Precarious Truth. A Personal Tribulation.
Supervisory Special Agent Blake Meyer is at an impasse. Bound and beaten in a dilapidated warehouse halfway around the world, Blake finds himself listening to an unbelievable story. Right and wrong warp into a despicable clash of ideologies. Life quickly becomes neither black nor white. Nor is it red, white, and blue any longer.
Every second brings the contagion's release closer, promising to drag the United States into the Dark Ages. Tens of millions could be dead within months.
Every moment adds miles and hours to the expanding gulf between him and his family. What is he to believe? Who is he to trust?
C. KEVIN THOMPSON is a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a kid at heart. Often referred to as “crazy” by his grandchildren, it’s only because he is. He’s a writer. Need he say more?
The second edition of his award-winning debut novel, The Serpent’s Grasp, is now available! The first four books of his Blake Meyer Thriller series are out as well. Book 1, 30 Days Hath Revenge, Book 2, Triple Time, Book 3, The Tide of Times, and Book 4, When the Clock Strikes Fourteen, are now available! Book 5, A Pulse of Time, is coming soon! And, his new standalone novel, The Letters, is due out January 7, 2020, in e-book, February 18, 2020, in paperback! It is a “Christmas Carol-esque” book that will haunt your family pleasantly for years to come!
Kevin is a huge fan of the TV series 24, The Blacklist, Blue Bloods, NCIS, Criminal Minds, BBC shows Broadchurch, Shetland, Hinterland, and Wallander, loves anything to do with Star Trek and is a Sherlock Holmes fanatic too. But you will never catch him wearing a deerstalker. Ever.
Website: www.ckevinthompson.com/
Kevin’s Writer’s Blog: www.ckevinthompson.blogspot.com/
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