Taking life too serious

[marie-elena (ferracano) r]

Hello Old Friends,

It's been a while since last I posted on this site. Guess we all have been busy with our "lives". But yet I never stop being proud of who I am & where I came from. Love seeing old friends & facebooking some too.

Tonight my son informed me that I take life too seriously. I guess worrying about my family, college tuition, pension funds, health issues & just the cost of gas. why shouldn't I be serious. I tried to remember, when life was not so serious. It was when I was a kid (much like my 18 yr old son). When we all felt safe. I love my home & my job. But yet, I don't feel the security I did growing up. I wish mom was alive. So I could ask her, if she felt safe for us, 30-40 years ago, on Beach Ave. I know there were some issues with drug addicts & a few bums. But I don't remember worrying about carjackers or nasty people. Who would shoot or stab you, if you look at them the wrong way. We didn't file police reports against others. If we were threatened, we stood up for ourselves. We may have a lot of technology today, to make life easier for us. But I believe life was calmer. When we had less gadgets & people actually talked to each other. I watched a remake of an old movie tonite. same story plot. But more violent & loud. Why must everything,be right in our faces? An old buddy, stated tonite, that he was happy, with his life. But yet worried that this "feeling", may be temporary. Why can't we just enjoy the little things in life, that make us happy.Am I just getting old? Perhaps, but I look at the world around us. I don't see as much happiness. Even with young people today. So yes, maybe I am serious with life. But I at least have a happy place in my memory. Where I can go & not be so serious.

[Les Sherwood]

Marie-Elena
This is a very interesting post.
I don't remember about thinking or being worried about being safe when i was young.. Why? Because i always felt i was safe at home or around the neighborhood as a younger person.. of course when we went to other places, like "downtown", or places like Harlem did I ever feel not so safe. as a youth I don't think much about being safe with our parents, neghbors and freinds around. And because we were ginen a wide latitude to do things, like going to Bronx Zoo, etc and how we learned to play games with out organizational oversight (e.g we made our rules how to play or adopted rules from older friends or peers).I think we leaned to moWe had a safe neighborhood and we had a good police coverage even we didn't think we ever need it. In general NYC was mostly safe in the 40's to 70's and not so safe in the 80's and early 90's but then Guiliani(? excuse spelling)did a great job in cleaning up the problems with drugs etc.
I think as parents we are being worried about our children and then this makes us more inclined to feel unsafe. Also as one gets older (and some of us are getting pretty old) one sees or hears more unsavory things that you worry about, esp about things like child abuse, etc'
These are some thoughts i have. But again an interesting post. ihave to think more about it.
all the best.
Les