What If…?

I think the most recurring question throughout my life has been what if? What if, is another way of questioning whether you’ve really met your full potential. I don’t care what it is, did I really do everything I could to reach the best I could be? Of course, there are many things I did going in with the notion that I really didn’t want to be doing it. These are filler events that basically prevent you from sitting around doing nothing until you feel enough motivation to work towards real interest. I know I’ve spent more time doing things I didn’t care about or couldn’t get myself fully into whatever it is I was doing. Why do I do this? That is the million-dollar question, right? I think there are very few things in my life that I have put my full desire to succeed and actually achieved an outcome close to what I wanted when it was just an idea. I know I’m being vague and haven’t laid out any examples, mostly that is because it truly is most everything I have done. That seems strange to say, but I know why, Fear! Fear of failure, looking silly, being laughed at, and many other excuses for poor performance. I have a hard time thinking about what I have given my all for. One thing I feel I have been excellent at is being a dad and being a son. But even those have been filled with times of “I could have done better moments”. Today I still fill unfulfilled about my retirement. I had dreams of creating a business that made more money than my entire working career. Yet, I still haven’t stepped across the line to fully implement my plans into some actionable plan. Frankly, I’m lost in what to do to become a success in my own mind. I feel I have fooled a lot of people into believing I was a success. Will I ever realize there is still time on my side? I don’t know, I want to be a success, but how do you cross the hurdle of doubt? I see those people that have done it. What is it about them that is different and what did they learn along the way that allowed them to have no fear or at least not letting fear control them?

I’m in my early sixties, retired, comfortable, but I’m also the most unsettled I have ever been in my life about me, myself, and I. I’ve been to the edge several times and pulled back and justified some other path, usually an easier one and not the one less travelled. Something I preached to my kids all their lives; I’ve never really been able to do myself. I’ve told my kids that no outcome is out of their reach. The only thing you can’t do is what you tell yourself you can’t. I watch my kids and realize they have taken some form of measure in what they were told. They believe in themselves and project it and chase it. They know there is more in themselves, but they don’t suppress it, they move forward believing they can be more than what they have accomplished, the difference is they push it. I found myself most of my career kind of falling into positions. I certainly made the most of those jobs, but it wasn’t until the last four or five years that I really put myself into a position to be more of what I could have done all along. I have no doubt that I could have achieved any position I wanted, but why did I settle into comfort of knowing people knew I was good at what I did, but didn’t satisfy myself into more?

Why didn’t I go to college? I really wanted too, but my biggest problem was I couldn’t focus on what it was I wanted to do as an adult. Since my sporting days were over mostly because I didn’t want to put the effort into being more than a high school athlete. I smoked and drank my way through high school choosing a partying life over a life of commitment. I had two major careers in mind when I graduated. First and probably my most thought about non-achievement was a degree in forestry. Not sure if I envisioned working for a company, government, or finding some niche way of my own business in the industry. I remember industry people coming to my school and talking about career paths. Back in my day, the state had a rolling testing lab where students would answer a lot of questions aimed at producing a career path that you should follow and supposedly would allow you to reach your full potential. Like most government driven programs they are flawed from the get-go. My career path suggested by this testing program was that I should become a truck driver. This should have been a sign to me in another way. I should have understood that what the test really revealed was that I answer the question with the least amount of work involved on my part. In other words, if I thought a question indicated it would take some work to accomplished it, I chose the answer that required no effort. I don’t remember how I felt during the process, but I certainly remember how I felt being told I should drive a truck the rest of my life. Nothing against those millions of truck drivers out there, but really, driving a truck meant only passing one test for a CDL type drivers license. I do remember thinking I would show you and to some measure, I fulfilled my desire to prove them wrong. Kind of the same reaction out of me when Mr. Scholl made a comment that it was silly to have high school relationships and trying to build a life with someone you dated in school. Fuck you Mr. Scholl, I got married anyway to my high school sweetheart. Although it ended in divorce, it wasn’t due to the reason he indicated. The other career path I wanted to pursue was photography. I think this was an obvious no do. Although I love taking pictures, I don’t think I really have the eye for it. But what if I had created a merging of the two and had become a forestry photographer? Is there such a thing, I don’t know but might have been fun finding out. Instead I knew I was getting married and my inner self told me to find a job where I could learn and get paid during the process. The military was my choice, and I hated that I wimped out and buried my aspirations.

I always wanted to be an outdoorsman. Forestry fit that role, but I also wanted to hunt and fish over any sport I participated in. I wanted some part of every day to be involved in being a better steward of my outdoorsman sense of self. I didn’t want to make a career as my cousins have guiding others to hunt and fish. I just wanted it for myself, and I wanted to be absorbed in it. I laugh because there is nothing stopping me from doing this now. If there was one thing that would provide some self-fulfillment, it would be living a life with this focus. But how does one go about committing to something that takes away from others? I’ve never figured that out. Maybe most people are in my situation and that is why so many of us are always looking to others for inspiration. But inspiration alone doesn’t achieve success. The inward desire to do, must be so overwhelming for some that they press forward and be damn to everything and every one else. Maybe that’s my biggest problem, I always have put some sense of duty or responsibility to others for them to allow what I have never been good doing for myself. The one time I did focus on myself doing whatever it was I wanted when I wanted, ended in divorce. To some measure, these things will be more forefront in my life, not to an all-consuming level, but I will be hunting and fishing more in the days to come.

I wanted to start a jerky business and call it “Saddlebag Jerky”. I wanted to be a novelist. For some weird reason I always wanted to own a combination feed store/hardware store. The old kind with hardwood floors and the smells of feed, wood, and years of oils and hardware. A fly-fishing shop would have been great with trusted employees so I could fish daily. A real estate investment business would be great. This one, we seem to be moving towards and if things work out, we’ll continue to seek opportunities in this stream. I love to work with wood, but I’m not a builder, however I do like to restore things with wood. I have plenty of antiques to mess with and if all works out, will sell them when done or purpose them in one of the houses. I wanted to own a coffee shop at one time, but felt the market was too soft in that area unless you had the support of Starbucks or someone like them. My real passion for a business was to own a billiards hall. I had planned this one out with some great detail down to the building, tables, benches, cues, etc. Later on, Jen and I discussed a bourbon library. Again, much detail was thought out and we dreamed of the possibility after retirement. I suspect that many of these dreams or plans were dismissed due to the time required to make them work and/or the expense.

One of these days I will grow up and figure out what it is I want to be, who I want to be, and what I want to do for the rest of my life. Mostly what I need to do in life is figure out how to take a step across the line and do something without consequentially thinking myself out of something. I admire people that just do and if it doesn’t work say “oh well”. By continuing to try, these are the people that find success in their own measure of success. I want to be like that. What if…?