MY WAY

The lyrics to a song were written by Paul Anka and made famous by Frank Sinatra. We all know it is called My Way.*

One of the lines I really liked was ‘regrets I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention’. I thought this was inspired and the mark of a good life.

When recently I quoted from the Robert Frost poem The Road Not Taken or when I think of Billy Joel’s song My Life, I feel that I totally identify with this view of life, or have, at various times in my own life.

The Billy Joel song was one I thought that my father would totally relate to after so many years of telling all of us that all he had to do was pay taxes and die and that all of what we wanted he actually did not have to do. He was right and I was wrong, including about my song choice.

What I may have thought he felt with 7 children over many years was probably not what he felt at all. In fact, I was amazed, and touched by his great humility when he stated that the Prime Minister had much more responsibility than he did.

For me, however, in my first years of freedom from my community and the demands of my extended family, the Billy Joel song was an anthem, which on one occasion of terrific wrenching dismay and pain, gave me something to shout from the rooftops at the top of my lungs.

Oh well, we all have days like this, especially when we are young and have a hopeless love affair crashing down around us en route to it’s painful end.

I still believe that each of us can have the life we want…starting now, if necessary. We all make choices and want things and people around us.

I truly believe you can live your life your way if you commit yourself to giving what you really want priority in your life.

You have a much better chance of getting one thing you direct your energy, concentration and resources toward than hoping to snap your fingers and magically everything you ever wanted will somehow appear, including winning the lottery.

I think however, that over time a couple of things will happen if you focus:

Some of the things you thought you wanted, you will decide you actually don’t want, either after you get them or along the way. You will get quite a number of the things you wanted and went after. You may, like I have, get a lot of things you never dreamed you could get or imagine for your life.

Doing things ‘My Way’ gives you a lot of freedom and makes you feel you are accomplishing things you want. To get what you want you often cut out a lot of distraction and debris and useless talk and wasted energy.

The simpler you make your life, the easier it gets to focus on those things that really make you happy.

Along with being happier yourself, you are most likely making others who cared for and continue to care for you happier also. Meeting with you has suddenly become a better experience, and often you are likely to be in a positive and cheerful frame of mind.

Life, none of us gets out of it alive. Maybe so, but it can be quite a good trip even though we will perhaps have some regrets. Compared however to the incredible number of experiences, you too might say as Paul Anka did, ‘Regrets I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention’. Sounds good to me.

*Songs - My Way – Paul Anka lyrics 1969;My Life – Billy Joel 1978 and poem The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost 1916