It’s Hard.

Deciding where to place effort.

Choosing how hard to work at something.

And how long to continue the application.

Sometimes I try too hard.

Sometimes I push beyond reasonable limits.

Sometimes I sacrifice too much of myself.

Hah, when I say ‘sometimes’, truthfully, I mean ‘often’.

Invariably, I attempt to avoid indifferent complacency. To lose focus is to put myself at risk. For years I generated enough velocity to become a dynamo of sorts…staying overly busy, going and going, but missing some cues critical to my success. At times I might drag my theoretical brakes to navigate correctly, you know, slow down slightly- so to not go barreling over the cliff. When approaching a challenge, I may only have nanoseconds to assess the situation then might let it fly, meaning after quick consideration, I go for it. However, this acceleration could be more of a caution-to-the-wind self-sacrificial offering than an educated gamble. Marching willfully into a wall of suffering doesn’t make sense to most people, yet here I attempt to explain.

With every job, I tried and tried until I couldn’t take it anymore. Oh sure, some employment gigs ended joyfully because of relocation or promotion, but some didn’t. That’s what happened three weeks ago when I quit my mental health / substance abuse counseling job after only one month’s time. Well, to be honest, it was more of a 12-hour shift housekeeping job than having anything to do with counseling. But that’s ok, I tried, and I learned, and now I know more about being a mental healthcare worker than I ever would have otherwise. Once recognizing the dead-end nature of that situation, I knew what I had to do.

Here now I chart a direct correlation between my recent Roger Ray resignation and one of the most critical business standards I have ever come across. I first learned this lesson the hard way, then for years utilized it to everyone’s advantage. That being to train slow, and fire fast. ‘Fire Fast’ also applies to quitting fast, because when it’s time to go then it’s time to go, toot suite.

All my romances, of which currently I have none, were the same and most specifically, my two failed marriages. Once facing major problems in the wed unions, I worked to fix them. I adjusted, I flexed, I tried new approaches, and for months even years, I stuck. But then, once recognizing the odds were insurmountable, meaning zero chance for reconciliation, I fired myself from the relationships. To set the record straight though, to be sure those relationships didn’t change…wife one and wife two didn’t change, but rather my expectations of what I believed I was getting or not getting from each of them changed, meaning I changed, or more accurately, my judgements changed.

Workwise, I try to help businesses operate like a business. Even nonprofit operations need to run like a for-profit enterprise in order to keep going. I have experienced first-hand that people are people and business is business, no matter the industry and no matter the location, from Prague to Poughkeepsie. Imperative to note and facts be true, a broken process is a broken process, and toxic workplace culture is toxic workplace culture, whether it be in the mental health field or if we’re simply selling bicycles.

Well now, here I designate the atmospheric misalignment: My assumptions going in, meaning all that which I thought was going to happen, or at least what I hoped would happen. In short order I learn my expectations are factually shifting judgements. With every job I ever quit, the job didn’t change but rather, my attachment to the work fell out of alignment with my reality. The sameness between romance and work is glaring…hah, it was neither a problem with the job nor the girl, it was a problem with me.

Ok, so what’s my damn point? Primarily, with everything I do, I endeavor towards maximum gain. I try to experience all there is or at least enough, without ending things prematurely only to find something else waiting around the corner. With this, I can avoid regret. I try not to look back in life and wish I would have done something differently. I try to find meaning in all things, even locating the strength inside of painful experiences like addiction. My substance addictions offered much-needed escape and comfort that was available nowhere else. There’s not a single thing in my life I regret because at the time, it felt right. I would not go back and change anything. If in fact I held such superpowers to change something, such altered state would change me, and maybe change me for the worse. I refuse to raffle and possibly make my life worse, so I let the past stay in the rear view. Additionally, I have lived to learn and know that resentment blossoms into regret, so I try not to go there either. When doing battle with others I choose wisely, and at times turn around without a word said. This is not running away. This is not fearing a fight; this is letting go.

Mindful of the universally applied hidden conflict, emphatically I pronounce that none of us enjoy easy-breezy the days long, not a single nobody. Everyone is struggling with something, fricking everybody.

While the while, I know for certain that all I need is already in me, but at times it’s hard. It’s hard to face the mirror and silence the noise. It’s hard to hold dearest the courage to live truthfully, damn the corruption all around. It’s hard to put first things first as the claws of urgency drag me apart from my purpose. It’s hard to find the strength to keep going after a loved one is gone, especially when losing a young person to overdose or suicide. It’s hard to walk away; it’s hard to let go. It’s hard to be the odd one, the one swimming upstream, the one flying willfully into the storm. And it’s damn hard to pull into the slow lane, just as the rest of the world zooms on by.