These last several months have afforded me an opportunity to
rediscover some of the key elements that make me who I am. Having been in the
throes of a divorce after 11 years of marriage and several career changes in
quick succession, I found myself rather isolated and forced to examine who I
had become.
I knew for sure that where I was did not match what I was
capable of. At some point it occurred to me that my worth as a person was not
the sum total of all of the bad decisions I had made in life. I also reckoned
that my happiness was never again going to be gauged by how much money I made
or how many things I could acquire.
The first step forward was to let go of the disappointment I
felt. I had built up so much out of nothing and then lost it all and found myself
massively indebted to Uncle Sam. Bankruptcy wasn’t gonna make this type of debt
go away. I had to accept that this was a reality and no amount of alcohol, fist
fights or skirt chasing was going to make it go away (someday I’ll talk a bit
about how traumatic head injuries can cause a person to become violent and
uninhibited).
I also had to come to terms with having lost the ability to
do work that I had come to love. My job was so many things: marketing,
engineering, travelling across the country, working on top of the tallest
buildings in big cities and working with my hands. It was challenging, exciting
work that called upon all of my skill sets.
After having lost my company, I was
reduced to going to work for a company that was once a competitor of mine (and
I used to kick their ass!). After less
than 2 years, I was fired from that job (the first time in my life I had ever
been fired).
After losing that job, I went to work as a humble laborer
for a construction company digging ditches (literally). Perhaps I sought out
that position subconsciously as a form of penance for having fucked up everything
else so badly. And why not: I was a drunk misanthrope prone to fits of
uncontrolled rage who had exactly zero fuck’s left to give this world.
But the universe had other plans for me. I was quickly
promoted twice in a matter of a few months and I began to regain some of my old
swagger. I realized that construction superintendent was not going to fulfill
me and I went back to an old stand-by…bill collecting (my first real job at 17
years old was at a collection agency). I called a local agency on a Tuesday and
I was working by the next Monday.
All of these incremental successes served to bolster my
confidence and restore my faith in me. What’s funny is that I had not noticed
how effortlessly I have gotten back up and achieved promotion after promotion
until I was forced to take stock of my life. It was clear to me that, no matter
what I choose to do in my life, I can achieve success if I put my whole heart
and intention behind it. My past woes had no bearing on my current circumstance
if I decided that it shouldn’t. My boss at the collection agency didn’t give a
shit about the scar on my face or the years I spent spiraling out of control.
If I showed up to work, on time, with a good attitude, ready and willing to do the
work he assigned, my past made no difference to him.
And this has been my mantra of late: I am neither the sum total
of all of the bad decisions I have made nor the sum total of all of the
successes I have achieved. I cannot, nor should I, ignore all that I have gone
through in life. There have been many up’s and down’s as there will be more to
come. I have to take what I have learned (good and bad) and apply that to the
situation as it stands at this moment. I can only affect change in what is
ahead; the past need only be used for reference purposes as it relates to how I
view my mistakes/missteps.
I eagerly await the dawn of each new day as it beckons new
and exciting opportunities. There’s no telling what may come, but come
what may, I am ready to meet it and
follow the path where it leads.
-MyKO
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