“Living the dream,” he wondered, “what would that be?”

I guess that would be different things for different people. For me, it’s simply finding yourself happy and taking the time to recognize and appreciate it.

I think it’s important to find what it is that you love to do - watching baseball, painting, taking road trips, whatever - taking the time to do whatever that is, mixing that with doing things you hate, and occasionally helping others to do what it is that they love. If you are fortunate enough to find someone you care enough about to share that with, all the better.

In my head, when I allow myself to slip into that “picturing perfect” state, I have a couple of kids running around on the ranch, an awesome wife who has her own thing she loves, there’s an old motorcycle parked by the shed, and I have a day off from a job I kinda like. I still write, I still shoot, I still snap pictures now and then. I am not rich, I do not have everything I want, but my kids are taken care of and the bills are paid. Occasionally, old country music can be heard, cigar smoke waifs through the air, and laughter is abundant.

But that’s just me, yours is probably different.