Category: Personal Growth

Wisdom

“If youth is wasted on the young, then wisdom is wasted on the old.”
–George Bernard Shaw

I agree that youth is wasted on the young. They don’t know what they don’t know. But I have to question the second part of this otherwise brilliant quote.
How is wisdom wasted on the old? Most older people can’t wait to share their experiences and for the most part, are ok enough with their past to effectively share what happened, why and the end result. My theory is that it can only be wasted on the old if
a)they care not to share it, or
b) nobody wants to hear it.
I know when my dad tried to share it, I mostly brushed it off. I didn’t want to hear it. Of course, now I find myself talking to his stone, telling him how right he was about everything. His wisdom was not wasted on me, it just had a tape delay.

I like to think I have some wisdom to share with anyone who wants to listen. My wisdom stems from a wide variety of fuck-ups in my life. My scars, of which I have plenty, all have a tale to tell. Even the ones that you can’t see. I am a walking cautionary tale. But it’s a tale I will gladly tell. But someone needs to solicit it because I am not one to offer up anything unless requested. Maybe that is how it is wasted, young people who tend to “know everything” are unlikely to ask therefore the available resource of wisdom is untapped and therefore wasted.

We have a world of information contained in a single cell phone, yet we live in the most uninformed and uneducated era in recorded history. Similarly, the older amongst us contain a veritable treasure chest of knowledge about how things happen, why, and how to prevent them. But unless asked for, it will die off.

If my experiences can help just one person avoid a life-altering mistake, then all of my scars will have been worthwhile. Not wasted.

Purpose

I blogged about legacy recently. I came up with what I consider to be the components of a life well lived. A life well lived is a good legacy after all. Here’s what I came up with.

Who are you?
What is your purpose?
What are you doing to achieve that purpose?
What do you stand for?
How did you make people feel?

I touched on the whole “who are you?” question. Now I want to explore purpose. For as long as I can remember I have asked big questions within. While I never outwardly projected as particularly educated, worldly, or intellectual, I always knew that I was capable of deep spirituality and able to ask profound and meaningful questions. Unfortunately, I did it within myself. So as I outwardly led a somewhat meaningless life I was at all times looking for my place in this world. I’ve always believed that everyone has a purpose, well maybe not everyone. Some people seem to occupy space without offering anything that resembles rent. But then it also occurs to me that maybe someone thought that about me! So touche’ I suppose. But I digress.

Finding one’s purpose is the ultimate goal of existence. If you are a believer in any higher power it logically follows that you are here for a reason. It is our obligation to realize the why, learn the how, and then put it to work. The first mistake you can make is to assume that one’s purpose is large in scope. A tiny rock thrown into a lake creates a ripple that grows and grows. One person standing up can start a movement that can topple a regime. One act of kindness could save a life and inspire a movement. And apparently, a shitload of cliches and platitudes can become a blog. Sorry, I had to.

God gives everyone a purpose, it is up to us to find out what it is. I found my purpose around the time I found my identity. When I dropped my hardass image, my Limbaugh-Conservative anger, and the “I’m in control and don’t-care-what-people-think” persona and recognized that it’s ok to be a nice guy with a good heart and open mind I found liberation. Nothing less. All of it occurred due to my story.

“He [God] doesn’t promise our stories will make sense, but He does promise they’ll find their greater purpose if we’re patient.”
Father Stu.

There it is. My story is who I am today. It didn’t make sense to me for a long time. But “why me?” eventually evolved into “why not me?” and the humbling journey into the pit of chronic illness taught me lessons that nothing else could ever have. I have lost almost everything in my life and I found positives in all of it. I will not lie and tell you that I was always upbeat but I always found a way to claw my way back to it. In the process, I became a person that some found inspirational. My story, and the consequent person that I became from it, became my purpose. Now, I use the new attitude of gratitude to help other people. I can only do so because I have finally found peace with who and what I am. To hell with big houses, big bank accounts, and big egos. Here’s to living within my means, seeking just enough, and small gestures to make the world a better place. I have found my purpose.

The calling

I’ve been interested in Social Work since college (many, many, many moons ago). I was a Psychology major in college. I studied the whole gamut but I was most interested in personality theory. Freud, Jung, Adler, Eriksen, and even the controversial but fascinating B.F. Skinner. I started Grad School but had to stop when our first little bundle of joy arrived. I was studying Counseling with the hopes of being an HS Guidance Counselor. That never materialized. While I never actually used my degree professionally, I found that my education in conjunction with my strong people skills (sounds cocky but it’s not an opinion it’s a fact) allowed me an advantage in every job I’ve held. I know people.

Imagine my happiness when I recently learned of an opportunity in Recovery Case Management. It occurred as do many things lately, it just fell in my lap. The Universe has been very good to me of late. I have opened myself to the possibilities and I have found them everywhere, in fact, they seem to find me. Funny story.
I have been detailing cars to make extra money for years. I had a customer in town. She paid me with a check and a twenty for a tip. As I was driving home I noticed that there 2 twenties stuck together. I turned around and asked her if she meant to give my 40 dollars. She had not. I gave it back to her. She was so moved by such a simple gesture of honesty (not a big deal I really can’t imagine doing it any other way) that she promised she would spread the word about me. Well, a referral, who I had never met and may not have, casually mentioned that I would be a good Case Manager at the Rehab she worked at. 2 weeks later, thank you Karma.

The timing and circumstances were perfect. I was just coming off of Disability after reclaiming my health and my financial needs are very different now. I could never have survived on the wages when I had the financial obligations of Homeownership and family. Now, my needs have changed. I want to do something that doesn’t feel like work. I have found such an opportunity and it has been the best move I have ever made. It is a natural fit for me. I get to talk to people, work with them, and do something that is bigger than a paycheck: help people. Call me corny, call me sappy, call me over the top but I swear on my new Kidney that I am all about that at this point of my life and I have found my happiness.

A year and a half ago I was sad, sick, and longing for something to be hopeful about. Today I spring out of bed and I go to a place where I work hard at something that doesn’t feel like work. It feels like a calling. I get humbled every day by how fortunate I am and have been; some of the people I work with have been to Hell and back. I get uplifted every day when I recognize their progress and am thankful for my small role in it. While I want to save the world, it’s just how I’m wired, I can take comfort in the small victories and not take the ones that don’t make it as a personal failure.

I may still be broke, but I’ve never felt more useful. In my many recent conversations about identity and self-worth I have delved into the connection, and the disconnect between our vocation and our actual selves. I am one of the lucky ones where my identity closely aligns with how I pay the bill

Legacy

Here’s an intense topic for Tuesday.
Legacy.
What will people say about me when I’m gone is something I think about often. Now, before I continue, it needs to be said that I don’t care how many people show up and how many “likes” the inevitable FB post about my passing may get. I just want to be a fly on the wall and see if five words are used in conversation:
“He was a good guy.”
That’s it, that’s all that I want. It seems that after all of those years of keeping up with the Jones’s, trying to climb the corporate ladder and make obscene amounts of money, and being a high-profile member of the many fraternities and groups that I belong to, it seems that my only goal now is to be a good person.
OK, so where is this going you ask? It is an extension of my earlier conversation on identity. I have come to realize that your identity is not a singular entity. It has many components:
Who are you?
What is your purpose?
What are you doing to achieve that purpose?
What do you stand for?
How did you make people feel?

If you can be consistent with all of these concepts, you will have achieved a legacy to be proud of. You will be remembered well.
Be someone that is remembered for the right reasons.
Be someone that is known for accomplishment, and serving a purpose.
Be remembered as a person that risked something to serve that purpose.
Stand for something so meaningful that you may have died for it.
Be someone who is not only remembered, but someone who will be missed.

As a fly on the wall of my own funeral, if I don’t hear the words, “he was a good guy”, then at least I hope I don’t hear, “he was a useless asshole”. There, I have opened up what may end up being a very big can of worms.
Brace yourselves.