What do you do when you have to accomplish something and you have tried everything imaginable to no avail?
Most people will stop at what they think are their limitations.
Parents tell us (as all parents should tell their children) that we can “accomplish anything if we put our minds to it.”
They aren’t lying.
I would like to be able to tell you from up on high that I am immune to failure and I have accomplished everything I wanted to do.
I would really like to meet that person.
From the time I can remember, I wanted to be a fighter pilot on an aircraft carrier. I had model airplanes like the F-104 Starfighter hung on fishing lines all over my room, pictures of the Blue Angels precision flying team on my walls, and a model of the U.S.S. Ticonderoga aircraft carrier on a shelf above my desk.
I was six years old when I received the bad news.
I was put through some series of brain scans that had revealed I had an abnormal brain wave which, turns out, was serious enough for me to be told that I could never qualify for any of the branches of the military or their academies.
Six years old.
So I’m six and I start thinking what could have occurred that changed my brain wave so much?
Was it the time I fell off one of those round swinging death traps at the playground and ended up UNDER the wheel as it spun around with kids shouting? A big bolt on the underside knocked me out and gave me a bleeding head wound.
Or was it the time I was hit by a truck and actually died until being revived in the ambulance on the way to a hospital?
That was probably it.
After all, at six you don’t have a very large bank of memories to draw upon.
So I had to change my chosen life goal early and truth be told, the closest I came to doing that was when I was deciding on what to major in college. The only thing I knew I did NOT want to be was a scientist. I lost interest in the subject after Physical Science in ninth grade.
I had no clue whatsoever that I would end up doing all the different things I did in my employment history.
I had briefly decided that I would major in pre-law with aspirations of becoming a hotshot criminal defense attorney and raking it in.
Then reality struck.
I actually had developed a conscience and sense of ethics which would negate the possibility of representing guilty individuals looking to circumvent our laws.
I became a high-profile French Chef more by coincidence than a real desire to exceed in that culinary arena.
I successfully traded stocks and investment vehicles for a Wall Street firm in the mid-eighties, but succeeded only to a point. When push came to shove and it came down to having to misrepresent (lie) to a prospective client to make a sale, I couldn’t do it.
Gordon Gecko I am not.
Enjoy the ride; it is all too short.
Stay well.
