When You Find Out Your Parents Were Wrong

When I was a kid, my Mom and Dad told me I could be anything when I grew up. If that were true, I'd be Spiderman right now.

It's amazing when your not careful even for a second how life can dictate you versus you dictating life. The place I am at today is a direct result of choices I have made by reacting to situations that have I encountered. I am positive that I am not the only one and likely there is probably less than 1% of the population that can say otherwise. When a popular insurance commercial screams at me, "Life comes at you fast" - I feel like saying, "Yeah, no shit." Even times when I can say I was proactive, for example when I found my wife (yes, found), it was still a reaction to my need for companionship. Every cause has an effect, just like everyone learns in school. But when you don't actually apply that to life and remember it when making a decision, the snowball effect one choice makes can derail an entire life plan.

Taking charge in life is not easy. It requires discipline, time management, goals and a true sense of self. I would say I am missing three out of four. Yes, you are your worst critic and I do possess a little of each, but my deficiencies overall cause great problems. Now we add partnership to the life equation. Well, without a foundation of all the other things in place and no personal direction, a partnership can be an everyday battle as one person becomes resentful of the other accomplishing goals.

Damn... lets just say that I, me for crying out loud, can be the worst partner due to never having found myself individually. I want to be many things, do many things, accomplish many things... goals really. Funny, thinking now leads me to believe I don't even have those. I have lots of IDEAS of what I THINK I want to do and become, but no concrete GOALS to speak of. Crap, make that 0-4 in taking charge of life. Could it be I am comfortable? Probably. Nothing on the outside is really "broke". I am in a MUCH better situation than many people, even people I know. But on the inside I am shattered. Having all the tangible things life can offer is great short term, but attaining these things through means not enjoyed, hell, its like selling your soul to the devil. So my "comfort" is false - especially when the demons in my head come out and remind me I am not doing whatever it is in life I want to do, or accomplishing anything truly meaningful.

Part of my problem is that thoughts, including this one I am currently having, are fleeting. I'll get up, walk away and maybe set up my iPod, or watch TV, or do whatever else will make me "relax". But by not remaining disciplined, not setting any goals to truly attain while making my time off useful in my quest, I will never have a sense of self and continue to live a life created by others by reacting to what comes at me on a day to day basis.

These are things no one tells you that I struggle to figure out now. If someone told me they don't sell spider web juice at Walmart, I would have known I needed to figure it out another way.