Days of old

My favorite line of all time is from the Otis Redding song " Sitting at the dock of bay".
The one where he says " I cant be what ten people want me to be so I guess I'm going to remain the same". I have made so many mental changes trying to be what society expects, my women expects, what my employer expect etc... that I find myself yearning for simpler days when the only thing I had to do was survive. True I'm make it more simplistic than what it was, but sometimes I really feel like I would rather dodge a bullet from opposition than deal with a man half my size half my age telling me what to do. Rules in the hood where simple and easy to follow.
Real life is not so cut and dry and is scary to many of us. There are know defined boundaries no chain of command. Its like the hood is a dream world perfect in many ways and flawed in others,it gave mea false feeling of security . I felt as if I was in control, that my grind controled my fate, but in reality I control nothing. I didnt learn this until I stepped out the hood and into the real world. I felt like I had been in the matrix all my life and the world around me has moved on and now I'm only relevant in a small 10 block radius I call the hood. I feel like one of millions of clones left to rot in a junkyard called home. It took me moving out of the hood and than looking back at it to see this . Through all of these ephinaies and enlightenments I still yearn for the days of old when my only worry was would I live too see tomorrow.