Quote of the Week...from Winston Churchill

When you're 20 you care what everyone thinks, when you're 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you're 60 you realize that no one was ever thinking about you in the first place.
                                                                              ---Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill, who as British Prime Minister guided his country through World War II, as well as resuming national leadership during the 1950s, passed away in 1965...long before the advent of the internet and social media.  I get what he's saying here, but it's also an overgeneralization.  Besides, although I'm nearly 63 I have had a suspicion for almost my entire life that few people ever thought about me...with a small number of blessed exceptions including my wife, children, and a few others.  And I've been okay with that...I think that when most other folks finally reach the same conclusion as I did early on, but only after many years of denial, they tend to get all cynical or even bitter about it, and sometimes this is expressed in attention-seeking behavior...often on that social media Mr. Churchill missed out on.  Now I do want people to think well of me...but only up to a point: no use becoming obsessed with the notion of popularity, something that I see as a snare to many, especially the young, who have enough to deal with without having that added burden on them.  Besides, at a time on this planet with seven billion people and billions more on the way within a few decades, I don't need to have watched the movie Casablanca to come to the conclusion that "it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three people [or just myself] don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world"...