I have come to realize that I am actually having a good time. Wait a minute! Imagine! All this time I thought that I was pretty miserable. Ignored, marginalized, left out, unappreciated and becoming irrelevant. How can one possibly be satisfied with that situation? The answer is that it is impossible, so the only thing to do is get over it. Do the impossible – think positive! It is really a very good idea (to think positive).

I have so very much to be thankful for. A reasonably healthy body; enough money to live on and stay out of debt without much effort; a loving wife (in spite of the way she acts sometimes); a wonderful environment to live in ( big roomy comfortable house, broadband Internet 24/7, dependable private transportation, lots of help around the place, incredible scenery that beats anything on broad screen HDTV), and much more than I can list here.

I believe in expressing gratitude for one’s blessings. I think it is a healthy practice because of the benefits it confers. I believe that gratitude can best be expressed in a prayer to God, and it cannot be done too often. Repetition of prayers is a tactic practiced by the Catholic Church, as you probably know. As if a steady stream of a prayer is more likely to get through… am I being sacrilegious? I guess not. Nothing can be wrong about praying to one’s Higher Power, whatever it is called – Allah, God, or….

If you are uncomfortable praying to God, then express gratitude to “anyone out there with more power than myself”. You do believe that there is some kind of higher power out there, don’t you? There must be, since you are probably not that well endowed. After all, who is for heaven’s sake.

I feel good after praying, done most often as I retire for rest and sleep. I figure that if I don’t wake up, things will be better because of the prayers. Sort of a short term insurance policy with no deductible. One can never be sure about waking up, when one is my age.

Expressions of gratitude work wonders when given to our friends and associates. Think about it – when was the last time someone genuinely thanked you for something? It may not have happened to you for a while. It is a cultural thing. It is a practice learned at home in childhood, taught by parents. If the parents are ungrateful or don't understand the concept, so will you, probably. Where else are you going to learn to express gratitude, to be thankful for something? Certainly not in public school. Some very primitive cultures are very good about this, surprisingly, other more developed cultures may not necessarily be. It is not very predictable; it has to be observed and experienced.

So to get back to the main point – I am having a good time. Here are some of the things I am doing that are fun and give me pleasure.

My wife and I love corn tortillas, but getting them here is impossible. So the answer is to make the corn masa from the plentiful supply of corn grown here by the villagers. I have found recipes for this on the Internet, and we are going to give it a try.

We are growing our own chickens. My wife has organized this, and is producing about 100 head a month now. We have a constant supply of fresh chicken, and she is covering the cost by sales to the villagers who appreciate the closeness and friendliness of the source.

We have a small piggery, and are growing hogs for our own use. It is very nice to have one’s own source of pork meat, but the trouble is we make the mistake of making them pets.

I am learning to make cheese. And bean curd. We make our own sausage of various types.

We have a garden which produces egg plant, chili peppers of various types, cilantro, basil, lemon grass, dill, onions, bitter melon, okra and tomatoes. We grow our own bananas, papaya, coconuts and mangoes.

I am a busy trader of stock options in the US markets each night of the week.

So what is this talk of retiring? I am having a good time. And I am sure that it is all because I am grateful for it, and express it in prayer.

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