My abbreviated take on life

   

My abbreviated take on life

As adults, we are creatures of our childhood, molded by our genetic makeup and environmental surroundings. If we act less than a perfect person as an adult, it is almost without a doubt traceable to negative experiences that were encountered during our youth, such as neglect, child molestation, or abuse, among others. No matter how hard we attempt to bury these afflictions in the dark recesses of our minds, they tend to influence our modus operandi. Why we act the way we do at times is strongly imposed upon by our subconscious, and if our will is not strong enough to overcome any perceived ill-behavior, then our personal bearing is compromised. My Christian upbringing has made many amends in my life throughout the years, but I still have a long way to go to make my life a more perfect one.
  Much of my life I have spent seeking out jobs that have brought adventure, entertainment, mental stimulation and satisfaction for me. Without these incentives I get bored very rapidly. There are very few people that I have met in my life that are truly happy with what they were doing. Of course, part of this may be due to the person not caring to move to another location, not able to find an available type of work in their field of interest, or for a given job not satisfied with the character of their boss or the administrative decisions. For example, with respect to the latter, as much as I enjoyed overall working as a marine biologist with the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, I was deeply concerned about many of the office employees smoking openly within the office (prior to any anti-smoking laws for office workers, etc.) on a daily workday basis. When I addressed the issue with my supervisor, who smoked frequently within his office, he said there was nothing he was interested in doing about it. So, I took up the matter with the Hawaii Labor Department chief, but to no avail. I was advised that it was up to my supervisor to determine what should be done about the given situation. Of course, you already know the answer to that! Thus, I moved my work place to the small office kitchen where it happened nobody smoked, thank God! At a later date I learned of an effort proposed by the Hawaii Department of Health to organize individuals from throughout the State Government and elsewhere to protest smoking in State offices and public facilities and present personal testimony before the Hawaii State legislators. I don’t remember exactly, but I believe only about a dozen people showed up, one of whom was a restaurant owner, myself from DLNR and the rest from the Department of Health. Not a great turnout, but as it turned out each of us testified before the Legislators with the result that no smoking in State offices, elevators, public gatherings beyond a certain number, as well as the establishment of no smoking areas in restaurants, became law in the early 1980's,  As such, our office smokers were “inconvenienced” by having to go outside the office to designated smoking areas. Hawaii no-smoking policies were modified in 2006 and later in 2016.