Five Things I Should Have Done Differently

When it gets close to your birthday you start reflecting on your life more than you normally would. With that in mind I would like to think about some of the things I should have done differently.
I Should Have Left New Orleans for college. I think I would have did a little better if I had left. There wouldn't have been any girls, friends, or nothing else going on to distract me from just enjoying the college experience. I stayed home to spend scholarship money and take the easy way out. I should have just struggled in Tuskegee where I wanted to go and got the experience of being away from home and making it own my own. I will always regret not doing that because I really can't correct that one. Those days are over.
I Would finish college first instead of getting a full time job. I am still feeling the affects of this decision today. The job market is volatile as it is and its ten times worse when you don't have at least a bachelor's degree. As well as I have performed at jobs I have had, I have never made the money or gotten the advancement I feel I deserve. The reason is I am always started at the bottom because of the lack of credentials to get in at the top or the middle. When you have that problem it takes years to climb the ladder, especially when are not going to kiss up or play politics with anybody.
I would quit Autozone three or four years earlier. It took me six years of working day in and day out in a situation that made me miserable to finally get the nerve to step away and go in another direction. One thing I didn't have in my early twenties was the ability to see certain things happening before they did. I hung around way to long and fell behind about 5 years. Once again, I should have listened to my daddy. He told "quit now before they start paying you too much to quit". That's exactly what happened and it cost me three years off of my game plan.
I would not "date" half of the women I did. It was only fun on the day of the encounter. I am not going to elaborate too much on this one. I will just say that I wasted allot of time, energy, and money on breast and legs. I'm not blaming the women. Lots of them genuinely liked me as a person. I just wanted everything I saw that I thought I could get. Nobody told me to spend all that time trying to be a player. I will say it before and I will say it again the swinging bachelor's life is overrated and unfulfilled in the end. I met about 7 potential wives and I messed up every one of them trying to work my way into 70 potential booty calls.
I would try to talk to some of my friends and keep them out of trouble. Every man is ultimately responsible for his own actions but I had a little more insight then some of those brothers and I didn't share it. I sat back and watch my childhood best friend become and addict, one of my best friends is high school was murdered at 19, and one of my best friends now, was homeless and incarcerated for about 5 years. In each one of these cases I think I had enough respect from these people to talk to them about what was going on and offer my hand to them. I'm not saying it would have worked. I'm just saying I could have tried.