Now that I am more or less retired, it just struck me.
I've managed to do just about everything I have ever wanted to do and more. I've had adventures few can even imagine, by myself, and with some of the finest people in the world.
I've been successful in the professions I chose.
I've had exceptional mentors, great friends, and some wonderful enemies.
I've created hundreds of works of art in various mediums, that with any care by the owners should last hundreds of years.
I guess the point of this is, I feel sorry for the poor people who got locked into a way of life that is not satisfying for them, and they live a life of quiet desperation. There is no joy in their work. There is no challenge. Just go to work day after day, doing the same thing over and over again, and looking for that day when they can finally stop.
Thank God I read Thoreau when I was still in my teens, and paid attention to what he had written.