Crossing The Gap

Whenever I go inside an office building I am reminded of my time working in Corporate America.  More specifically, I am reminded of how ingrained in me it once was that pursuing a job in a Corporate Environment was the primary path to a successful life.  It’s been almost 20 years since I left Corporate America and what I continue to find more fascinating as I get older, is how vast the chasm is between who I thought I was then and who I actually am.  

This fascination comes with learning myself in a deeper way over time.  Obviously we can’t rewind time but with what I know now, if I could have given my 18 year old self some advice, I would have said get a job as a security guard, start working at the YMCA as a personal trainer, start reading as much as you can about human physiology/performance/nutrition, and start training at a boxing gym once a week.  If there wasn’t a boxing gym nearby, I would suggest I move to a city where there was one.  Think about the difference between that and going straight to college and then the corporate world.  I was so committed to that pathway that I almost killed myself to stay on it.

As I have written about frequently, I’ve still struggled to let go of that old narrative of a successful life.  As the realities of the cost of living hit me at times it’s super easy to slip into the mindset of, “If I was still an engineer money wouldn’t be a problem.”  It’s taken a lot of courage and vigilance to remain committed to who I am and who I want to be.  These are things that I will write about over and over again.  Why?  Because if you aren’t naturally suited for the dominant narrative in your immediate environment, it’s going to take overcoming a lot of friction and conflict to be who you want to be.

• It’s the kid that lives in a trailer park or a project that does want to go to college and get on a corporate career path and there is no one in their environment that can remotely fathom such a thing.
  
• It’s the person on a stable career track in a Law Firm that comes from a family of lawyers that wants to open a bakery but wouldn’t dare tell their family because the accusations of being crazy and ungrateful would be overwhelming.
  
• It’s the overweight unathletic kid who’s never been good at anything physical and who has no adult examples of fit athletic people in his life, but he believes he can be fit and athletic (that was me).

When I got into the military I remember how much of a relief it was to be around other people who had walked away from a sure thing to come try out for US Army Special Forces.  I met a guy who had been close to finishing a PhD in Physics who was going to work for NASA.  That’s the apex of success for a lot of people.  People thought I was insane for leaving the corporate world but to guys like my buddy who was about to work for NASA, I was doing something that made sense for me.  

You have to be the expert on you and no one owes you support for your decisions.  If there’s a big gap between what the average person in your environment thinks about life and the life you want to live, it’s going to take courage and vigilance to stay on the path you want to be on.  It’s worth it.  Keep fighting.

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