Originally written August 14, 2008. I know you probably think this blog is entirely about me all the time anyway, but this is actually about me. I often look at my life in a big picture way, to make sense of the little things and remind myself that there is a greater plan at work.
My plan.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Self Reflections, Anyone?
So ends another visit to Louisville, Kentucky.
Although in ending this trip, I feel a sense of disappointment. I accomplished my goals to my satisfaction. Nothing tragic happened. But somehow I anticipated this trip would be different. More special? It was just another trip, and that was fully expected. Fly in, do the job, fly home. Yet the feeling that something was lost is there.
Or maybe not lost, but simply not gained.
I would expect of myself by now that I know how my life is. Things happen or don’t happen. What was I anticipating? There was nothing there and nothing happened.
Why, at this point in my life, do I still feel disappointed when nothing happens?
Part of my realizations in recent years have included this fact: I know nothing will happen unless I make it happen. Nothing risked, nothing gained. Disappointment from other people is a way of life, so why let it get me down? I haven’t allowed that. I’ve accepted this as just the way my life is.
So why this feeling now?
If you’ve read the crap I post here that I attempt to pass off as poetry, you know a basic theme is just what I have stated above; life is what you make of it. If you want something, sitting in your room wallowing on-line to anonymous strangers isn’t going to help you fulfill your dreams.
Unless your dream is to be a whinny, obese hermit with internet access.
My dreams are different and usually a bit more ambitious. What I want out of life has changed over the years, too. I remember a sixth grade project I did on what I wanted my career path to be. We had to research it, what it would take, the education required, job skills needed. My chosen profession? I know this is going to be a shock, but my chosen profession then was to be a pilot. I was going to go to college and join the Navy and become an officer and fly F-14’s, serve my country, do my duty, then move into the private sector and fly 747’s around the world.
I think that started to dissolve as I got older and realized the way the military actually worked, and the fact that I have issues with authority, question everything and am horrible at taking orders not backed by logic. So as I got older I looked in different directions. Technology was the way to go. I started doing application programming in school. Actually I started doing programming in fourth grade before the whole pilot fascination took over, but through high school I took advanced computer courses. Optional and not as popular in 1986 as they are today. My professor entered me and two classmates into a state-wide competition (Running of the Nerds, I called it) for analytical programming. I believe we placed in 2nd.
My goal was to learn, and get a good job with a company like Hewlett-Packard. Build a career, settle into life, make good money, etc..etc..
I got into college and discovered one of the requisites for a Computer Science degree was to maintain a 3.5 or better in core courses… including... calculus.
My first calculus class showed me this wasn’t going to happen. On my first exam, I scored a 12.
Out of 100.
A 12.
The curve, it didn’t even bring me up to an F-minus.
I was undeterred, and discovered psychology.
I loved it. Helping people. I was going to make the world a better place one frazzled brain at a time. One affected personality at a time. One straight jacketed psychopath at a time! But you kind of need a PhD to go anywhere with psychology, unless you want to be a social worker slogging in paperwork every day making just above minimum wage. Well, I hated school and... and... uh...
...randomness time. The woman sitting across the isle from me on this plane used to be a man. Maybe she... or... he... still is. But, wow... man hands and an adam’s apple Clint Eastwood would be jealous of. Why is this so distracting?
Anyway, I took my psychology degree and remained in my crappy, minimum wage customer service job until an opportunity presented itself. An opportunity, in technology. Doing sales for a national technology distributor. It was the mid-90s and technology was booming. The company was hiring people, 15 per month, just to staff their sales force to handle the volume.
A good job, but man let me tell you, it was not fulfilling.
I wanted to impact the world, not talk on the phone 10 hours a day. I wanted to change my community, not wear out a mouse pad every month. I wanted make a difference, not chase numbers.
I started my own business. Well, there were some big steps here and there in between but to cut to the chase, I started my own business.
And it has been doing well. For six years I have grown my business. Now part of it has me on airplanes traveling the world.
Funny how that comes full circle.
But this is more than just a business to me. It is my chance to impact the world. My chance to change my community. My chance to make a difference.
Everyone has their motives and their motion. Dena has her charitable organization helping the underprivileged in New Orleans – that’s awesome! She loves what she does and I have done what little I can to support her. Many people owe know have.
I want to make a difference, just like she does.
The paths are different, but the end goal I believe is very much the same.
My employees often seem genuinely appreciative of the jobs they have. My techs have commented they’ve never made as much money as they’re making now. Sarah works for me and I feel so much pride and happiness when she comments that she enjoys her job, and feels she is learning new things and feels a commitment towards the same company goals I have.
That is one of the main purposes of this company: to put people to work in better jobs, and in a better environment. A different corporate environment. One that gives them freedom and autonomy over their jobs. One that pays them better, offers better benefits, flexibility, more time with family and more satisfaction in life in general.
I want to grow the business, at a bare minimum to leave something strong behind for my children. Something they can take charge of as they get older and build a livelihood from. Something they can retire from and support their children with.
I’m trying to make a difference. In an old steel-city that has seen it’s economy play the wallowing hermit, complaining to the anonymous people around it and unable to help itself. My goal is to be the company that makes a difference here. To help the people and the community pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and change their future.
As Abraham Lincoln once said, “The nice thing about the future is it only comes at you a day at a time.”
I take this a day at a time.
My whole life right now, I can only take a day at a time.
After all, how can I change an entire city if I can't even change myself each day? How can improve the fortunes of others if I can't even change the direction of my own life?
Some people, people very close to me, I’ve confided in them my dreams and you know what their response was?
“You’re crazy.”
“One person can’t make a difference.”
“It’s impossible.”
It’s overly ambitious, right?
If I fail, I’ll let them say “I told you so.”
But you don’t know if you can succeed unless you try. What is the worst that can happen? I fail and end up as one of the wallowing, anonymous hermits; faceless and forgotten?
Exactly where I would be if I didn’t try at all.
Hence my stance: Don’t just do as you’re told. Try to do the impossible.
Why live an ordinary life? You get one shot at this thing – one life. One opportunity. I can’t face a life where society dictates what I can and can’t do. Social norms and religious dogma feel like prison bars only designed to keep people from reaching their potential.
From getting the most out of life.
I want more than that.
I want to live, and create hope. Create it in my own... particular...
...”Idiom, sir?”
IDIOM!
Maybe that is what I was missing from this trip. The feeling that I have created hope. If not for those around me, but at least for myself. Maybe I failed in doing that this week.
I won’t know for sure, but I know tomorrow when I wake up the future will grant me another day for me to try and do the impossible.
