7 Things I Never Knew I Would Have

There are more than seven, of course. But these are the first things that came to mind. These are seven of the things I have that I never really thought I would.

Life takes mysterious and interesting turns all the time. As I’ve navigated the ride of my life, I’ve picked up:

A tablet computer. Don’t I sound old calling it a “tablet computer” instead of just a tablet? The original version of the tablet computer came and went in the late 1980s and early 1990s. No one found much need for one. Today, I own a simple $80 tablet I picked up at an electronics store. I can download YouTube videos and read Kindle books with it, and that’s all I need to do. I don’t have an iPad or anything fancy. That just wouldn’t fit my personality — or my budget. Besides, I do my real work on an old-fashioned desktop computer.

A George Foreman grill. I rarely give in to consumer pressure, but I wanted a George Foreman grill because I’d read how you can make great grilled vegetables using one of these machines. And supposedly, hamburgers take half the time as in a skillet. The problem is that I don’t like my food pressed down and dried out, and skillet cooking is actually quicker in many cases. So I’m having trouble figuring out what to do with this well-regarded and carefully promoted device.

A beard trimmer. Who knew I’d ever be able to grow a respectable beard? It took a while. Every guy owes it to himself to get the best stubble trimmer, best beard trimmer and best hair clippers available. When I was a kid, stubble wasn’t in, but things change. Attitudes change. The large number of attitude shifts since I was a kid extend far beyond facial hair — and that’s a very good thing. Plus, my writing work has involved researching stubble trimmers more times that I care to admit.

A Weed Eater. I always assumed I’d live in an apartment in town. But when the rent on the apartment we lived in for 11 years went up by more than $100 a month, we decided to try out the semi-rural life. We spend just as much time in the heart of the city as ever, but we sleep a few miles outside the big city. And after more than a decade of that, I’m ready for something else. The weeds are taking over the house anyway — because although I have a string trimmer, I don’t use it very much.

A stable of websites. I can never remember how many websites I have, but I think it’s 21 or so. Each of them makes me money in one way or another. Many of them are Amazon affiliate sites, but one of them — Fort Worth Copywriter  — is simply a site that tells people I’m a writer. I haven’t been actively promoting it for very long, and it’s already brought be a few writing clients.

A writing career. I never thought I’d make it as a freelance journalist, but I did for a while. Then when I returned to writing a few years ago, I never thought I’d make it as a web content writer. But I have. It’s a great feeling to work every day doing something I really enjoy — and something that improves the world. Many websites need much better content than they have now, and I can help with that.

A good life. I never really saw much future for myself. But armed with my George Foreman grill, 21 websites and my clunky little tablet, nothing can stop me. That may not be exactly what you require for happiness, however.

Your life probably involves many things you never thought you’d have either. A bit of unpredictability makes life interesting, doesn’t it?

One of the keys to a good life is to shed the people and things that weigh you down and fill your life with things that matter to you. That’s not something to be taken lightly and is, in fact, serious business.

Image: Pixabay