regrets of a 31-year old bachelor

This summer I've been hanging out with my volleyball friends, who range in age from slightly younger (1-2 years) to significantly younger (6+ years), and it's been great fun. But as I listen to the stories of youthful indiscretion (perpetrated years ago or as recently as last week), I have to admit that I held myself back from a lot of fun (though potentially risky) behavior during my college and post-college years.

I realize that some people get exciting late in life--called "late bloomers," as if we've been locked in a state of physical pre-adolescence and are getting our flood of hormones decades late. The tragedy with late blooming is that people your own age don't have the patience for someone who wants to act like a 23-year old, and the 23-year olds aren't very taken with the idea of a creepy old guy hanging around. It's enough to put a halt to the bloom altogether.

My perception in high school and college was that my priorities were the right ones--hard work, industriousness, proper amounts of sleep, reverence for parents, respectful distance from women, generally clean living, no substance abuse, personal betterment, etc. etc. What a mistake! Who was feeding me that BS? I blame TV and movies, to be honest. And no thanks to you, Ben and Maggie--you dropped the ball as older siblings when it came to showing me the upside of personal corruption. By the time I became a frat boy, I was inpenetrable... literally uncorruptible. The effort it would have taken to undo the damage of my prolonged chastity was too great for anyone, and the payoff for them would only have been some funny photos and bragging rights.

So here's the lesson to any young sprout reading this blog, which should be balanced with whatever your parents or teachers or preachers are telling you: don't give up your opportunities to be bad, naughty, negligent, corrupt, stupid, and risky. There is some payoff to being responsible, but don't believe that there is no payoff to being irresponsible. And the latter payoff diminishes quickly the older you get. I did as much right as I could and it didn't save me from having regrets. Make sure you have some fun while there's fun to be had.