‘Do you have any regrets Camp, any unfulfilled ambitions or unreached goals?’ I asked my friend after I sat down and had a sip of ice-cold beer. I was bothered by an email from a friend, claiming that we can all plan our lives with what we have and that everybody can live a fulfilled existence. 

‘You know when I was young, I wanted to be a journalist but then I got sidetracked and went to law school until it dawned on me that lawyers only deal with people who have problems. I switched to pedagogy and became a high school teacher for English and Geography. Then I took over a bookstore which curtailed my travel ambitions. Instead, I read a lot and was and am always fascinated with all the aspects of our little planet.’

            ‘Really Camp, I had no idea you were on track to become a lawyer. I dreamed of becoming a priest because they only worked on Sundays or a clown because they made people laugh or a pilot because every boy wanted to be one. 

            ‘You were lucky to be born into a society that allowed you to make choices,’ Camp said. ‘To have dreams and fulfill them; have ambitions and achieve them; to have goals and reach them is not everybody’s domain. The boy in the Gaza strip who can only go to a madras where his main subject is the Koran or the girl in Afghanistan who cannot go to school at all because she is a girl do not have the same playing field as the boy and the girl who were born and grew up in Demark or Switzerland or Canada.’

            ‘But still, even the poorest campesino in Guatemala or the young woman who was just forced into marriage at the age of 14 have dreams, but can they fulfill them, having no choices and no chance to change their situation,’ I said.

            ‘You don’t have to be rich and especially talented to reach your goals but you have to be able to choose: To study, to marry, to have kids, to travel or even to run away. That means the postal code of where you’re born is the most important factor in your life’s trajectory.’ 

            ‘Can all of us chase our dreams and ambitions and if we cannot reach them, are we condemned to a humdrum and unhappy life or drown in addictions like drugs, gambling or watching daytime TV?’ 

‘I think not,’ Camp shook his head.  Ordinary lives have highs and lows and can be special, like falling in love, the joys of children, the arrival of grandkids.’

‘One thing is clear to me,’ I said. ‘It’s a privilege to be able to choose and a cardinal sin not to take advantage of chances and opportunities. We learn from trying and sometimes insights and solutions come from times of chaos and turmoil. At the end of my day I want to be able to look back with no regrets and no stone unturned.’

‘Do you feel lucky to be born in Canada,’ I asked Vicky while she deposited two fresh cold ones. 

‘Yes, I do but luck is relative,’ she said. ‘Everybody born into a loving home is lucky. The rest of life is a matter of wit and circumstance.’

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