If there is one thing that I have learned over the years, I suppose my biggest lesson is about the way time keeps moving. I swear, it’s a trip!
Days keep adding, and before we realize it, yesterday is long gone and so are the chances that came with it.
I can remember people telling me to be aware and pay attention. I was told that life moves pretty fast and yes, I remember thinking how this is something that old people think.
I was told to pay attention to what I want to do. I was told that I had to prepare for my future, only I was too young to realize that the future is important.
However, as I have said before in different journals exposing the ignorance of youth, I will repeat myself and say that I believed the future is something that only happens to old people.
Not me. . .
No –
I swore that I would never grow old and never be your typical, 9-5 grown-up who paid attention to gas prices or the cost-of-living increases.
I never believed that I would be one of those “suits and ties” who make it to the train in an old station car, married, miserable, head forward, neck bent downward as I make my way to a designated train ride with a copy of the newspaper under my arm.
And now, fast forward, no one buys the paper much. The news is fed to us through our different branches of technology, which has become an addiction for most people.
I never thought I would think about benefits or the cost of healthcare or dental insurance. I never thought that I would spend most of my life working for someone else, punching a so-called time card, in and out, or getting changed into a uniform and being either a company or a union man.
I never thought I would brown-bag my lunch or worry about having to save money, investing my funds in an upcoming retirement plan, and I suppose I never thought that my funds would span beyond the obvious or the important, which to me, my focus was either the car I drove, the food I ate, the rent I’d have to pay or the places I’d be going to on the weekend, because “Everybody’s working for the weekend.”
I remember taking a job to earn money because I was told about this machine which is known as Corporate America.
I was told that I was going to need to toughen my skin and harden my stance, but most of all, I was told that I was going to have to “get honest” and get ready for Corporate America.
However, as I report this to you, decades later, it is my responsibility to inform you of one undeniable thing, which is that I did have to toughen my skin and harden my stance—but as a man who has been in different boardrooms or workshops and as someone who danced to the different tunes in both the white collar and blue collar environments, Corporate America may be a lot of things, but honest is not one of them.
No, I can say that I have seen more honesty in holding cells and lockups than in boardrooms with club ties and business handshakes.
I never thought this would be me. I never thought that I would care about growth or bettering my position in the corporate food chain. I never believed that I would be in bed as early as I am and working where I work or being in a union for nearly 30 years, nor did I ever expect to be a person who would tend to look for and to inspire leadership roles; yet, here I am, alive, in the flesh, and much older.
I remember my first sales job, which was door-to-door, and painfully disheartening. Then, I landed a job at a different company across the stree , selling windows to homeowners in the suburbs of Long Island.
But that didn’t seem to last long.
I was fired for being the way I was and years later, all the higher-ups in that company were sentenced to several years in prison for fraud and embezzlement. As it turned out, the person who told on me for being someone with a bad attitude is the same person who turned state’s evidence and ratted on all his friends and partners.
What a guy, right?
Then I took a position as a salesperson who sold identification items to garment manufacturers. Then I found another sales job, selling fastening items, like buttons and buckles, and zipper pulls to designers and garment manufacturers. Each time I took a job, I took them with a mindset that looked for any port in the storm. I was unhappy at one place, and then I found myself working somewhere else.
I eventually took a job as a helper in an operating engineer’s union working with my hands and working the same job my Father, The Old Man, worked his entire life.
I took this job because it was familiar to me, it paid well, and I could make a good living.
In fact, I never realized that I could make a better living like this with the blue collar than many of my previous co-workers who dressed with white collars.
I took this job and thought to myself, okay, I will work my way up (for now) and I will do this until I figure out what I want to do with my life (or when I grow up).
I am 52 years old now. I am grown and what I have learned is that we tend to settle.
We tend to allow the world to spin around us.
I realize that temporary positions and temporary fixes can become permanent. The same thing goes with relationships and the same thing goes with life. We tend to settle and say things like, this is good enough for now, but now becomes much longer than we expected.
Settling can become a habit and fear of leaving the understandable comforts can eventually become so intimidating and paralyzing that we fail to realize that we can go, move, change, improve, and adapt to life in a way that both meets our dreams and fits our needs.
I have worked away most of my life, saying that I will do this until I figure out what I want to do. In all, I realize the longer we spend going in the wrong direction, the longer it takes for us to adjust and to get to where we want to be.
I know all about fate and destiny. I know how life changes and so will the people in our life. So will our comforts and our intentions. Life is always changing, but this doesn’t mean that we have to sell ourselves short and take a settlement instead of holding strong and work hard to get what we want most.
Never settle, I tell you
This become habit forming and more, this is a hard habit to break. Just know that temporary life becomes more permanent than we realized—and next, you’re stuck. Next, you look back decades later wishing you made a better choice.
I can say this for sure because of a thought that came to me years ago, back when I worked at 909 3rd Avenue.
I got my engineering certification while working there. I figured I would stay with what I had, when meanwhile, my soul wanted to go a different way. Decades later . . . I’m still paying for that choice.
Watch out for temporary fixes and decisions.
They can creep up, just like time does, and then you turn around and wonder, “Goddamn!”
Where did all the time go?
And holy shit!
What the hell happened to my life?
The Written Addiction 