Of good decisions and bad breaks

My Dad really likes a group called the Dixie Melody Boys. I tend to enjoy the Southern Gospel genre when done right (and not like it at all when done wrong) and when I found out they were coming to Portland around his birthday, I instantly thought it would be awesome to take he and his wife to dinner, then the concert.

Dad struggles to drive into Portland these days so I asked my sister in law if she would mind driving him in. My brothers and their wives generally will pass on this genre, so it really would be a favor to me.

She is a wonderful caring person who absolutely loves helping other people. I honestly would have been very, very shocked had she refused. Of course she was excited to do so.

My wife, who also more or less will pass on this genre, will NOT pass on trips to the Olive Garden, her favorite restaurant. So she decided to go.

The brothers and the second sister in law, perhaps also drawn by thoughts of Olive Garden with Dad, elected to go after all.

Come the night of the concert...Dad and his wife got sick. So they were not going. But everyone else still did.

So now, and yes, I think this is funny, the only people NOT going to the concert were the person it was all put together around. The people going were all the people who would pass on it except their desire to hang out with Dad.

Then they got a late start and missed dinner...so ended up just going to the concert.

I honestly was kind of discouraged. I was probably the only one who had any interest at all in going at this point and that interest was considerably lessened because I suspected I would be the only one enjoying it and everyone else would probably be miserable, which I would feel guilty about since it was essentially at my prodding they were going, which in turn would lessen my enjoyment.

 I know it is not my responsibility...they are adults making their own decision and it is not my job to make sure they enjoy things. But that is how my mind works.

So I very nearly called it off and was seriously thinking about not going.

Mind you I have been looking forward to this concert for a couple of months. And as my wife will attest, I seldom look forward to anything because the more I look forward to something, the more likely it is something will go wrong and it will be a huge disappointment. Such as, oh, I dont know...Dad missing it and only people who don't necessarily want to see it being the ones going?

Topping this off, I am not generally a concert goer. I prefer the edited, clean, crisp studio versions of songs. I don't care about "live performances", find nothing special about most of them. I like skipping tracks I don't like (Pandora's "thumbs down" feature can back me up on that).  I like being able to re-listen to a song I like.

I actually had my wife's number dialed to tell her not to meet me in Gresham, that I wasn't going when I randomly thought better of it.

Good choice.

We got to the concert. The wife enjoyed it...until she started getting sick and left half way through it (we drove separate).

The brothers enjoyed it. The sister-in-laws loved it. My brothers' kids enjoyed it so mch that the younges one took the cd they bought into her room, put it on auto-repeat and has not stopped listening to it since Thursday.

And I loved it. Been listening to their cd myself quite a bit since then.

All of that is preamble.

I make a lot of decisions based on assumptions and expectations.  I don't try a lot of things because I pretty much know how they will end up.

And as a result, I likely miss out on a lot of things that I might later find out I really enjoyed.

And largely based on the reactions to this concert trip, I am actively, consciously trying to change that. I plan to purchase Risk Legacy, get a group together to play it, and mark up the board, rip up the extra cards, etc.

I am going to get accomplished within the next two years a trip I have wanted to do for years and never done because I was afraid I would be disappointed.

I am going to make changes. And that can be nothing but a good decision.

Even if there are sidetracks and disappointments along the way.