Half-Life Journey

Half Life Journey is supposed to be inspirational, yet It’s been some time since my last post. In looking at that post, I feel my entry was pretty lacking in the inspiration department. Since that last post, events in the country and around the globe seem heavy and chaotic. Add in the typical stressors of modern life: all of this made me want to unplug and detach from everything. Yet I don’t think I’m alone in feeling like the world is a chaotic and uninspiring place right now. I think a lot of us feel the turmoil, not just personally, but collectively as well.   

When Have I Felt Off-Track Before?

This isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way and in looking back at the first half of my life, I realize I’ve felt off-track many times before. As a young tank gunner aspiring to be a tank commander, my life and my career suddenly felt off-track when the Army selected me for mandatory recruiting duty. As an introvert, recruiting for the Army seemed like a nightmare, and there was no getting out of it with my career intact. When I completed recruiting duty and returned to tanks, I again felt off track when I was selected to move to the unit’s operations section. Instead of deploying with my comrades after almost a year of training and bonding, I was to moved to a unit everyone thought of as the place for incompetent soldiers to end their careers. During my first tour in Iraq, outside the wire for the first time, at the site of our unit’s first two casualties the day before, I felt off track as I wondered if I had the courage to do the job for the next year to come. Many months and many casualties later, realizing the selfishness and callousness of those around me in learning we’d just lost another comrade left me feeling extremely off-track.

Eventually being made to choose between my children and the Army, ending my career, getting divorced, losing friends and loved ones: the number of times I’ve felt off course are many. My most recent feeling of being off course is in my current job when I contemplate what I do now, versus how much more I feel I am capable of, while having no idea how to get there or who to reach out to. At each point of feeling off track, I also felt like a failure, as I’ve been feeling lately regarding this blog.

Accepting the Drift

Looking back at the many times I’ve felt like I was off-track, I felt at the time like a failure. Yet in hindsight, I learned a lot about myself and gained skills I wouldn’t have if I’d remained on the straight path I so wanted for myself at the time. From recruiting came interpersonal skills, sales knowledge, a great self-lesson in personal courage, and friendships that I never would have made otherwise. In moving to operations, my intellectual and emotional limits were tested, and I earned the respect and confidence of both my soldiers and the unit’s leadership. At the same time, my illusions about the Army were shattered and I adjusted to that. I adapted. Ending my Army career eventually lead to my current one, my first marriage led me to my children, getting divorced led to my current marriage, more children, more family.

Each time I felt off-course eventually led to new opportunities and new experiences. Some of these opportunities and experiences came to me, while others I found or moved towards. With that in mind, I am reminded about something I maybe always knew, something we should all know. Feeling lost is not the same as failing, it’s just part of the process of living. This means I haven’t found the job that allows me do more, yet. I haven’t made the connection or found the right door to achieve the success I’m looking for yet. If we can look at feeling lost, off-track, off course as a step towards a new path, imagine how exciting life could if opportunity constantly looms over the unseen horizon?

As I bring this post to a close, the challenge question I pose for us all to ponder is: What if getting lost is just another way of finding a new path?