Hi again Luka and Branka,
I've read both of your posts, we all think we haven't done enough or too much or the wrong things or whatever!
I'm glad my son doesn't insult me but I wish he was attending a university or doing something! Last year I was disappointed that he was sent home from the military, but we never thought he would join in the first place. He's very quiet and has a lot of kindness within him, and he was sent home for unusual behavior, yelling back at instructors and other aggressive behavior that wasn't in his character. That made us think he wanted to be sent home on purpose.
Our problem here is that my husband and I were too relaxed, we both had very bossy fathers (my father would freak out if someone had hiccups, he hated noises) and so we just wanted to unwind from our own childhoods and not be big yellers. Now we have someone who's almost 20 and not much intention of getting his life in order. He behaves like a 14 year old.
He knew that "henpecked" comment would make me annoyed, and then he just smiled and looked angelic like it was a little joke. It's difficult to be mad at him. Last year I showed him an example of what it's like to get an old fashioned belt-whippin, Jayson was over 18 then and just ran around the house while I smacked him a few times for no reason except to show an example of old-style parenting. My husband thought that was very funny. Jayson thinks we're crazy.
A long time ago, my mother called me on the phone and asked why I only wrote her a letter of 4 sentences. That made me so mad, I said "Look, old woman, you're lucky ANYONE writes you ANYTHING if you're going to count the lines!"
So recently I was in a hurry again and wrote a few lines and then drew a big smiley face to cover all the blank page, and at the bottom wrote "FULL PAGE LETTER!"
I also believe that if we learn by our mistakes, then it should hold true that the more mistakes we make, the smarter we get. Right?!
We only live this lifetime once, do what you want. In the past few years I tried to improve upon that by doing what I want while trying not to hurt other peoples feelings. That's more difficult. But we could get hit by a car tomorrow, or later today, and if you're still conscious while lying in the road waiting for the ambulance, you don't want to think of all the things you haven't done yet, so it's better to do something even if people think you're making mistakes, instead of regretting NOT doing the things you wanted to do....while lying in the road waiting to be scooped up and repaired by people who at least had the guts to become emergency workers.
That's advice from someone who got yelled at by an old hard-a$$ military man for having hiccups as a child, and drawing a smiley face to her mother at age 43.