One thing I try to do now is remember that the breadth of my life I see looking "out" from within is a bit like having blinders on as opposed to what it looks like from others looking "in"? Too, I try to remember "Time" and how things get done/accomplished over "long" periods. Next week I'll get my second BA but my first was in 1972 (in the "wrong" subject is why I went back and got the second in the "right" one :-) and I've been going to the school where the 2nd BA will be from since 1974. LOL.

I think too there's a lot of "trading" going on. I use to "do" nothing and read 3-5 books a week; which reading, by itself, sounds good but I literally was doing nothing else and yet people look at one on the outside and assume a person "has a life" which isn't necessarily true. So, the book-reading stands on it's own. But, getting back to trading, now I'm going to school, however, I don't read very much! That doesn't take from my "previous" accomplishment and how people think of me as a "reader" -- now they also think of me as a full-time student; even though I only take a course or two a semester because I also only "study" despite that much time not being needed for those few courses. Too, because I'm going to school, I'm automatically seen to be a "scholar" and "intelligent" which are inferred rather than necessarily true :-) I am intelligent but I don't know about that scholar-type but one sister-in-law gives me "learned"/scholarly-type best seller books each Christmas. LOL -- she has 2 Masters degrees but thinks somehow I'm some genius, learned somebody (my husband is, so I think some of it rubs off from her thoughts about him; if he married me then I must be. . . :-)

So, I think Echoes that you're not quite accurate about yourself :-) and you're just as with-it as we all are. Mostly now I'm just following my "interests" as I come across them. I'm "playing" basicaly, seeing where things "go." Not at all hard to do. Enjoying most of what I'm doing and having some success helps me with some of the harder tasks I take on, gives me a bit more confidence (10+ people coming for brunch next weekend for Mother's Day, all of them from my husband's famiy/former family (his ex-wife and her mother and sister :-) which is okay because we get along fine)).