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<\/p>\nRUSH: I\u2019m still looking at myself here on the Dittocam. You know, I left here yesterday doing that. I don\u2019t see myself on the Dittocam much. I mean, it\u2019s right there, but I don\u2019t stare at it much and I did yesterday and I\u2019m still staring at it. You know, it\u2019s amazing how much better we guys get as we age.<\/p>\n
What I\u2019m doing here is killing time because I knew this was gonna happen. The staff has walked in — wait. The theme is still playing. They can\u2019t hear you singing so you\u2019ve gotta start all over again. It\u2019s not my birthday today. Tomorrow is. In utter defiance of my wish that nothing be done about it, the staff every year comes in and sings happy birthday. (staff singing) Thank you. What is that? What is that supposed to be?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
DAWN: It is a white trash cake, but it has glass balloons.<\/p>\n
RUSH: By the way, ‘white trash cake\u2019 is a popular term here that we use. It does not denote racial connotations at all. What are those, black olives on there? \u201cA manly birthday.\u201d Okay, just one candle, who can\u2019t blow that out? Gone. Oops! Forgot to make a wish. But the wish is always there.<\/p>\n
I like the colors on there. Thank you very much. I have given up, I\u2019ve given up asking the staff to ignore this, they simply won\u2019t. I thought maybe I\u2019d skate because the birthday is not \u2019til tomorrow.<\/p>\n
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Do you know who else has a birthday on January 12th? Jeff Bezos. Did you know that? I had no idea. There\u2019s a lot of famous people with birthdays on January 12th. Of course with me leading the pack.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Dawn put — they look like black olives on top of the cake. They\u2019re black balloons to signify getting older. How\u2019s that for inspiration? And it was pointed out, \u201cThese are black balloons, Rush, because you\u2019re getting older.\u201d<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Mansfield, Ohio. This is Tim. Great to have you, sir. Thank you for waiting.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Happy birthday, Mr. President. I mean —<\/p>\n
RUSH: (laughing) Thank you, sir.<\/p>\n
CALLER: — Rush Limbaugh.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank you very much.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/APP-032818-RUSH-Anchorman.jpg\")
CALLER: Pleasure. So you\u2019ve repeatedly said when you were young you\u2019ve always wanted to be older and you enjoy getting older. And, no offense, but you\u2019re no spring chicken anymore. So I\u2019m just wondering, do you still enjoy getting older?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, it\u2019s a great question. In fact, I was just thinking about it a half hour ago if anybody would remember I have said that, and here you are. For those who may not be aware, just let me restate the thing that you have recalled, the thing that I always used to say.<\/p>\n
I always wanted to be older. When I was 8, I wanted to be 10; when I was 10, I wanted to be 15; when I was 15, I wanted to be 18; 18, 21; 21 wanted to be 30; when I was 30, I wanted to be 40; when I was 40, I wanted to be 50. And the reason is that from the moment I was able to realize certain things, it was very clear to me that older people were freer, they were independent, and they all seemed to be really enjoying things.<\/p>\n
Now, I wasn\u2019t aware, of course, in these times of people\u2019s problems. This is a generic assessment of people. I was not delving into people\u2019s personal lives. This was just a general assessment. And I think it was largely due to the fact that I just was unsatisfied when I was young. I didn\u2019t like school. And I kept hearing people, \u201cMan, high school and college, best days of your life.\u201d Not for me. They were obstacles. Those days were obstacles. I knew when I was 8 or 10 what I wanted to do.<\/p>\n
Now, I didn\u2019t expect to be able to do it at age 12, but by the time I got to be 16 and 17 and 18, I wanted to. And having to go to college was an obstacle, not an opportunity. And so it remained true that when I was 20, I wanted to be 25; 25, 30. Every year that I got older, my life got better. And it\u2019s still the case!<\/p>\n
CALLER: Ooh.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I turn 68 tomorrow, and I don\u2019t have any regrets. Those are pointless \u2019cause you can\u2019t change anything. But you\u2019ve heard the old lament, \u201cMan, if I could have known or had some of the financial wherewithal 30 years ago that I\u2019ve got today,\u201d of course, that\u2019s just a wasteful exercise in dreaming and imagining. But I have not yet hit the point where I wish I was not getting older.<\/p>\n
CALLER: So it\u2019s still fun for you? Every year you go, “Oh, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, for me, it. I\u2019ve been very lucky. I say that every day is an adult Christmas for me, and it is. This is not to say that I\u2019m perpetually content and happy. I\u2019m like everybody else. I get mad some days. There are days I get depressed and all this. But, I mean, overall, getting older has always been what I thought it was gonna be. There hasn\u2019t been anything disappointing about getting older.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hmm.<\/p>\n
RUSH: There are some things that — now, wait. But how deeply do you want to go with this? How deep?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, the reason I was asking \u2019cause I shared your sentiment my whole life as well. But now I\u2019m almost mid-thirties, you know, you see your parents starting to age and more people are starting to die and you\u2019re like, ah, man.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, hey, look —<\/p>\n
CALLER: But it is still fun. I love every year —<\/p>\n
RUSH: No, no. You\u2019re only in your mid-thirties. The one thing about getting older is exactly what you say, people begin dying more frequently. And your friends, people that you know, not just grandparents, parents, friends of grandparents, but people that you know begin getting sick. And so, yeah, it sobers you up. I mean, it calls things into reality.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Rushs-Father-002.jpg\")
But, you know, I\u2019m a very reflective and introspective person. And I mentor a young man whose father died not long ago. And he was asking me a series of questions about things. And I said, \u201cYou know, one of the things I wish I could impart to you but I can\u2019t, you\u2019re gonna have to live it.\u201d And he\u2019s not even 20 yet. He has already lived a life that has much more in it than mine did when I was 20. He\u2019s been more places, he\u2019s seen more things, met more people.<\/p>\n
I said, “The one thing that — I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a disappointment, but it\u2019s just not what I thought it was gonna be. Success is nothing like I thought it was gonna be.\u201d And if I dwell on it, I could allow myself to be disappointed by it, which would be silly. Certain things I wouldn\u2019t trade, don\u2019t misunderstand, but it\u2019s not what I thought it was gonna be. It did not bring certain things that I thought it would bring. It did not make certain things I thought would happen, happen.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Just one more time — one thing deeper, \u2019cause you always talk about your father. Had he been around to see this, do you think you may have felt, ah, I think that\u2019s it?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay, ask me that question again about my dad.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Okay. Your father, he wasn\u2019t around to see how successful you are, you know, running the country now. And I just wonder how important that would be if he was able to see that.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay. Now, that is, to me, a fascinating question. My father died in 1992 right at the beginning of all this. He saw very little of the success. I was able to buy my mom a Ford Taurus. She loved it. He could not believe that you could buy a car without having to make payments. He was overwhelmed by that. And he loved airplanes. He would have gone nuts being able to zip around on EIB One.<\/p>\n
But the fact that he wasn\u2019t around to see it, it\u2019s more that I missed a resource. He was a great resource for me to bounce things off of, to offer me perspective that I was unaware of. He had lived longer than I had. He was highly informed, educated, opinionated, and so forth, and was unabashed in sharing all of that. But, you know, the answer is, I don\u2019t live in the — this is not a criticism of the question. I don\u2019t live in a what-if world. I don\u2019t rub my hands together and say, \u201cOh, I wish my dad had been here.\u201d He wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I will sometimes sit here and say, oh, I wish my mom and dad were alive when Harry Reid\u2019s trying to get me banished or when these clowns in the media accuse me of running the country, being president in absentia, this kind of thing. But they\u2019re not. And I just have to take solace in the fact that they would have been proud and appreciative and so forth. And I think I know what my dad would be reacting to in terms of the media, the way I get reported and covered. He would be chastising me for letting them get away with it. I know certain things that he would be doing.<\/p>\n
But he\u2019s not here, and my mom died in 2000, so she got to see and participate in much more of this. I had great satisfaction in that regard. But it\u2019s enough for me to know that he, more than he ever knew, adequately prepared me for it. And that\u2019s enough. And I have great faith that he\u2019s aware of it anyway. I do have that belief.<\/p>\n
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So the answer to your question, I still don\u2019t regret getting older primarily \u2019cause I can\u2019t avoid it. I cannot tell you how a supreme literalist I am. And, by the way, that leads me to an ancillary point. I sometimes have communication problems with people because a lot of people don\u2019t speak in literal terms, they speak in generalities, and I don\u2019t. So sometimes people misunderstand me and I misunderstand them. But, to me, I haven\u2019t gotten to the point where I regret getting older primarily \u2019cause there\u2019s nothing I can do about it anyway.<\/p>\n
Life is all about what you make it. We all only get one. And some of us get really lucky and are able to do a lot that we want to do. Other people never get the freedom to do that for a host of reasons. I have zero regrets, even when I say success has not been a lot of what I thought it was gonna be. I\u2019m not saying I regret anything, \u2019cause it is what it is, and you have to adapt. I didn\u2019t know anybody to prepare me for success. I didn\u2019t know anybody who had ever succeeded at anything until I myself reached certain levels. That opens doors.<\/p>\n
But I continued to try to learn from people who were, in effect, like my parents. I met people whose wisdom I respected, and they became surrogate parents in a way. So even though you lose them, your parents, everybody does, you can try to take steps to try to replace them if you\u2019re fortunate enough to meet people who you think can in certain circumstances. So I don\u2019t regret getting older, and every year still is better than the year before. That\u2019s amazing to me, but it\u2019s the absolute truth. I appreciate the call. I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: In utter defiance of my wish that nothing be done about it, the staff every year comes in and sings happy birthday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":296321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n