I love this video. It brings back all kinds of ’80s memories featuring brightly colored polo shirts, mullets and the imminent threat of world annihilation. But gloom and doom aside, I think that I can say in all honesty that I have NEVER wanted to rule the world. I am not so sure that I’ve ever really wanted to rule my own world, much less everyone else’s. Can you imagine having that kind of responsibility? It was more than enough to have two kids of my own and be responsible for making sure they had the correct servings of veggies every day and were signed up for swimming lessons when they were in the second grade. Rule the world? No, thank you!

Actually, the older I get the less I want to decide anything, much less rule it. Choosing what type of toothpaste to buy causes real internal turmoil these days. Deciding what to wear to work makes me want to lie on the closet floor and throw a tantrum. Eating out would be a real drag if I hadn’t learned to be the last one to order and thus be able to copy whatever someone else picked out that sounds good. I’m not quite sure if this sudden spate of indecisiveness is age-related like wearing bifocals and being able to remember the theme song from “The Facts of Life” (You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have…) or simply the overabundance of options that present themselves on a daily basis. I grew up with seven different television channels to choose from and I honestly don’t remember a night when there wasn’t at least something halfway entertaining on. Now we have cable and Chromecast and streaming and DVDs yet I still seem to wind up watching reruns of forty year old episodes of The Waltons. There is a lot to be said about the comfort that can be found in the familiar.

I have come to realize that what I really want is to be an honest to heaven, 1970s circa Stepford Wife, although skipping the part where the husbands kill their original wives and replace them with lookalike robots. The Stepford wives all lived in nice houses and drove decent cars, spent their days fretting over clean collars and arranging flowers and apparently never had to decide a damn thing. Come to think of it, even the robot part wouldn’t be all bad as robots never have grey hair, sagging thighs or random worries about whether or not Social Security will be there for them when they retire since they never retire. Works for me!

But back to ruling the world. I know a few people who would LIKE to rule the world and they’re the ones who would probably be the worst at it. As Tears for Fears so eloquently put it, “Of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts forever…” and that, I would guess, would include ruling the world.