I’ve got a lot on my mind today. I started reading a new book titled “Replay” by Ken Grimwood last night. The idea of the book is a man dies and comes back in his freshman self and year with all of the knowledge that he gained along the way. Since I just started the book I’m not sure what avenue it will go but it did get me thinking about my life. People always talk about if you could do one thing over again or change something what would it be? The politically correct answer is obviously “nothing”. I figure anyone that says nothing isn’t looking at the whole picture or hasn’t made many life changes. That got me looking at some of my friends lives and what all they have done. The vast majority of them haven’t made a life changing or difficult decision or have made maybe one decision that changes their life. I’m not talking about the decision where if they would have showed up 15 minutes early they would have walked right in the middle of a robbery, but the decisions where you know if you choose A you will forever change your life and if you stick with B then things stay the same. There are very few people that make the choice to move across the country, hell even across the state knowing the decision will have a lasting impact that could possibly be negative for them.
Looking back on my life up to this point I see a few major junctures that came where my life was drastically different when I made the decision that I did. The first one is coming out of highschool- I opted to join the Army instead of going directly to College like most of my friends or like my parents had wanted to me. The experience definitely changed me as a person and had I chosen the college route my life would have been infinitely different. I can’t even imagine what the changes would be; I just know that a good number of things would be different considering how the Army has shaped my thought process and logistical sense. Hell, college might have even made me a democratic. I doubt it though
Once I got out of the Army I worked at a gym and then worked as an account representative for a Semi-conductor manufacturing plant. When I was there they had a second facility in Austin, I had never been to Austin before in my life but for some reason I lobbied the VP, Jack Wherle, who was head of the Austin plant to take me along and move me there. To this day I have no reason why I wanted to move to Austin. I knew 1 person in Austin; all of my friends and family were in the Dallas area or scattered throughout the US. He offered, I took it and now the majority of my very close friends are all people that I met while I was in Austin. My roommate Fiona started talking to a guy, Zack Fogleman, who basically introduced me to everyone that I now consider dear. I can’t say enough about my time in Austin and the people that I met there. Days spent on the lake wakeboarding, nights spent downtown, house parties, great (nothing compares to it) food, just about everything was great about Austin- except the pay. When the semi-conductor industry went bust I went looking for a new job. Like everyone in Austin I worked at Dell at one point, I did the Sunset Direct gig and hated it, oil and gas commodities purchasing which was freaking horrible, and I never could find anything that I really liked. I was talking to a friend of mine from high school, Nancy Boy, and he had interned at a law firm in Addison part time through College. So once again I had a decision to make. Do I leave all that I love to go to Dallas? I chose to go to Dallas and start over. Once more I left all that I loved along with my friends that I became so close with to see what else is out there.
More recently I had been with the above mentioned law firm for the last 7 years, lived in the same apartment for the past 5 years, and had the same car for at least that long. With things in constant decline at the firm; top talent was leaving weekly, the pay raises were coming less frequently, and more control was being handed over to people who had the confidence but not the competence to achieve the desired results I made another decision. Things in my personal life had become stagnant as well. I had been finished with the scene factory that is Dallas for some time, the hose beast I was dating, while beautiful, wasn’t trustworthy and more embarrassing situations than I care to name had occurred with more frequency. I had the same friends mostly doing the same things and I had become distracted from a lot of things that I wanted to do with my life. Instead of taking charge of it and making decisions that would be beneficial I was more along for the ride. I knew I was unhappy about a number of things but I wasn’t doing anything to change them. After some consideration I took a job in a field that I never worked in where the job was 65 miles away and I would be going to training in Houston which I knew would surely end this warped idea of a relationship. I can’t tell you how things have turned out because I’m one month into it.
Each time that I’ve made a major decision it’s always hard at first. Anytime you change one aspect of your life that has become a constant then it’s difficult on you both physically and emotionally. Of all the decisions I wonder about the most I’d say going into the Army and moving away from Austin are the two biggest ones that I always question.
The Army was a difficult decision that I think about weekly. When people ask me if I liked it I always reply that it was fun but equally sucked. You make lifelong friends while you are there. I know people still that would come half way across the world if I needed them to without even asking them. The unspoken bound formed with people is amazing. You can hate someone in your unit with every bone in your body and when you’ve been on a 30 day field problem slogging through the swamps they are every bit your equal; they have shared the same taste of WP, the burning CS gas, the upper decker thermite MP adventures and you know that they have your back regardless of the situation. With all of the situations and things I learned from being in the Army I can’t think of the person I would be without it. If I had gone to Hardin Simmons I wonder if I would have stayed there. I wonder if I would have met someone like so many do in small town colleges and moved to Dallas right away and started a family shortly after graduation.
While I don’t miss making $32.5 K/ yr in some dead end job in Austin with everyone else while living with 4 roommates I do miss my friends and the numerous different experiences that Austin allows you to have. Austin is like no other place that I’ve been too. It has a vibe and a feeling to it that you can’t explain unless you have been there and soaked it up. There are so many different facades to Austin. It’s not just 6th street, The University of Texas, Lake Austin, Lake Travis, South by Southwest, Austin City Limits, or 4th Street. Each of those pieces make up some part of what makes it so magical. For me Austin will always be about the Lake and the food. Two of my best friends in the world, Cory and Jacob, were entrenched in the Austin Wakeboarding scene while I lived there. It pretty much dominated my life for 3 years. Both Jacob and Corey could tell you some hilarious stories about me and the adventures we all had during that time.
I wonder about people that don’t make life changing decisions. Are they scared to try something new? Do they think they will feel ashamed if they try and fail? Are things in the area they grew up with so perfect they don’t believe life could be any better? I’ve never understood people that live their whole life in a town or city. They grew up there, went to college (maybe) someplace within a couple hours, and then promptly moved right back after graduation to hang out with the same people they went to high school with. Not to knock the people I went to high school with but I’ve met so many great people since then. Most of my close friends I didn’t go to high school with. Maybe that’s a small piece of it. I don’t ever consider the family piece since I’ve never been close with my family. I still contend that the world has gotten a lot smaller in the past 10 years. Skype, mobile phones, social networking and email makes things incredibly instant. Airfare prices have come down as well so I can’t see that being a major factor. I’m not sure what causes people to become complacent in their lives and I hope I never do.
“History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.”-Gerald R. Ford
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