Persistence and Diversion: My Wayward Path Through College

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wayward path

I had joined the Army right out of high school for two reasons: To get away from home and to earn money for college. I succeeded in both goals.

After two years and 10 months active duty service, I mustered out, drove home to Texas, and enrolled in junior college. It was going to save me money on the front end so I could have more for the back end. Good plan, but it didn’t work that way.

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Waves of Emotion

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waves

There has always been an undercurrent of anxiety running through my life. Even though I am a pretty laid back guy, I find it hard to sit still or just be. Over time, I’ve become used to my anxiety. Like a refrigerator that runs quietly in the background, sometimes it’s not until it starts making noises that you notice it.

Surfing was one such noise that reminded me of my anxiety. Here’s how it reared its ugly head and and how I kept it at bay…

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Really, It Wasn’t You

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it wasnt you

I was in a café the other day, and four ladies were having coffee at the table next to me. They were chatting merrily about social things, when a couple of them noticed a man they knew walking into the café. The man took several steps in their direction, and suddenly pivoted around and walked out the door again.

The ladies were aghast. One by one, wide-eyed, they chimed in:

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How to Raise a Good Man

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raise a good man

I was recently asked to be godfather to a very special young man; the ritual requires godparents to oversee the lad’s ‘spiritual education.’ Not being a great churchgoer, I thought I’d rather leave him my thoughts on what it takes to be a good man, if not necessarily a religious one.

I just saw a movie with the boy’s mom; it was called The Descendants, starring George Clooney. Afterwards she described the main character as a ‘good man.’ It occurred to me what an undervalued concept that has become in today’s society; men today tend to think of themselves as successful or not successful, sexy or not so much, cool or nerds.

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Why I Stopped Searching for Happiness

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searching for happiness

Sometimes the only thing you can do is to just stop searching. Making it look like you’re after the feeling is not the same as actually having the feeling.

I was at a point in my life where everything looked great from the outside. I had just graduated college with Honors and two Degrees; I had my own apartment that I could afford; I got a new job plus multiple freelance opportunities. But still… something was missing.

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How I Overcame the Torturous Choice Between Doing Work and Slacking Off.

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work torture

Sometimes I’d rather claw my own eyes out then sit down and start working. You might think this is because I have some faceless soulless factory job. Or that I’m merely a cog in the corporate machine but I’m not. I run my own business. I set my own schedule. And I love what I do. Despite all this, just getting started is one of the hardest things I do all day.

This is what work morning looks like. I’m sitting at my house after breakfast or a run. I open my computer where I have a list of things I’d like to get done today, this week, this year, and this lifetime. I look at the list and begin to formulate what I want to do first. Then all of a sudden, as if hordes of Mongols have invaded my brain, I think of some decadently lazy thing I could do.

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Real Estate, Music & Top Ramen. My Path of Perseverance.

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Perseverance

It was the summer of 2008, also known as The Beginning of the End. I was thirty years old, married and living in Spokane, Washington. My twenties had been spent enjoying a great economy and a booming real estate market. I had been developing real estate and enjoying some substantial success. However, it became very apparent that my business endeavors were in serious trouble. Mistakes were made, projects were stalling and the market was sliding toward the cliff. The unavoidable path that suddenly lay before me left me speechless. I spent months trying everything I could to avoid the inevitable. It was late August when I realized, we were finished.

Running out of money, I had to tell each of my business partners I would not survive the next few months. Everything was about to burn right in front of me. I would have to file for bankruptcy and it was going to hurt like nothing I’d ever felt before. This would take years to recover from.

What would I do? Where would we go?

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