Last year I reported that I was venturing into Linux World. I’m back to report that while interest is still with me, progress isn’t. There’s always something else that’s a higher priority. Examples? Leaky faucets, car repairs and maintenance, taxes, trying to catch up with email, trying to resolve glitches with one thing or another, getting things done for the very few clients who haven’t accepted my retirement, and more. I thought retirement would give me time to do things like update my various websites, install and learn Linux, write stories or even books, travel, play my harmonicas, strum my ukulele, learn to use the unused set of wood carving knives I acquired decades ago, touch base with old friends, and so much more. At age 75, the sense of running out of time before the final deadline arrives generates anxiety which can be disabling and interfere with just about everything including sleep, exercise, and diet which ought to be a top priority instead of irregular events. The only consolation about the failures in such things is that once I die I won’t care. While yet alive, there’s some consolation, albeit rather small and rather fragile, in knowing that things could be worse. But, how pathetic that, at the end of one’s life, the best one can say about it is, “It could have been worse.”
It Could Have Been Worse
June 15, 2026
Life
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John Chappell
Last year I reported that I was venturing into Linux World. I’m back to report that while interest is still with me, progress isn’t. There’s always something else that’s a higher priority. Examples? Leaky faucets, car repairs and maintenance, taxes, trying to catch up with email, trying to resolve glitches with one thing or another, getting things done for the very few clients who haven’t accepted my retirement, and more. I thought retirement would give me time to do things like update my various websites, install and learn Linux, write stories or even books, travel, play my harmonicas, strum my ukulele, learn to use the unused set of wood carving knives I acquired decades ago, touch base with old friends, and so much more. At age 75, the sense of running out of time before the final deadline arrives generates anxiety which can be disabling and interfere with just about everything including sleep, exercise, and diet which ought to be a top priority instead of irregular events. The only consolation about the failures in such things is that once I die I won’t care. While yet alive, there’s some consolation, albeit rather small and rather fragile, in knowing that things could be worse. But, how pathetic that, at the end of one’s life, the best one can say about it is, “It could have been worse.”