I'm not complaining about my life, Guest. My life, like yours, is good. I have everything I could want. It is what has happened to the cities and the general larger society around me that disturbs me. I see a society that has truly lost its way, morally speaking. Toronto was a clean and beautiful city when I was a kid. You didn't see the trash in the streets like now, the homeless people sleeping on the pavements, the graffiti everywhere on the buildings. You didn't have 50 or more murders a year in Metro Toronto (you might've had 2 or 3), and stupid young men in gangs firing guns on Yonge St and killing innocent people in the crossfire. You didn't have a middle class mostly up to their ears in debt. You didn't have a populace so cynical about elections that most people have little enthusiasm to vote anymore when it comes right down to it, but they still do it, though, with a sense of participating in a sorry farce....because no matter who you elect, the same thing happens: things get worse.

And that's Toronto...and Toronto is still a paradise compared to most American cities its size.

I repeat...MY life is great. I make good money, I live in a nice place out in the country near a nice small town...everything is great. It's what I observe happening more around me that concerns me.

But, hey, if you want to give me your sympathy for my supposed rough lot in life, go right ahead... (grin). I don't mind. And I won't be insulted.

And you're quite right...life IS what you make it. That I agree with 100%. I have friends who've done well with their lives and friends who have ruined their lives...and it was all up to them. Most of them are basically good people, but some had either poor judgement or not much self-discipline, and that can be fatal.