Second Chances ... sigh

If only we could do it all again, knowing then what we know now.I'd start in the summer break between sixth and seventh grade. A simple trip to the doctor could have changed my life then and ever after.Ah well. It is so very true that it does no good to dwell in the past. What's that quote? Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.  Something like that, anyway. The quote, I know, was by an author by the name of Carl Bard, or something like that.  The name isn't important.  The point was that it was all I could find about the man.  I searched all over the net, even some books at work.  Nothing.  The quote exists in isolation.  The quote could have been written sometime in the last 15 to 20 years, or it could have been written a century ago  He was born, had a family, grew up, possibly got married and had children.  He's listed as an author, but none of his works can be found today.  All that remains of him is this single quote, which I can't even remember properly. At least, however, he has that.  A single quote from the past that reached out and touched someone in the present.  How many billions of other human beings have far less than that? That isn't really fair though.  Each one of those billions of human beings have shaped the world we live in now.  Their lives, their decisions, all of it DID matter.  For the people we are and the people we meet from day to day were influenced, and perhaps even created, by persons now long dead and forgotten.  The threads they wove through the souls of their brethren still remain today. And yet I lay here in bed, feeling sorry for myself because I can't go back and change the past.  The future is out there for my taking.  Every day I have the opportunity to grab it, to try to make it mine.  And every day I continue to live my little life of quiet desperation ... a management librarian in a mid-sized town.  One among millions like me. Why do we ask for second chances when we fail, continuously, to grab the first chances that are always available to us. Love and hope, all my friends, Alphonsus