An Interesting Conversation

The other day I had the most interesting conversation with this incredibly talented professional woman I know. Of course, she also happens to be my ex-wife, so that added a little spice to the conversation. She told me she admired what I was trying to do with my life and that she was pulling for me to be successful. Now, in light of what’s going on in my life, that was an incredible statement. After-all, I was the one that had walked away from Corporate America and was currently recklessly experimenting with re-making myself, while part of me was hoping Comrade Obama might be right and there would be a great big safety net waiting for me just before I bounced off the ground of failure. She was impressed with me!

Now what’s so strange about her comments is that my ex-wife is a highly educated woman that through sheer determination and hard work is now the number two person in a prestigious local Investment Banking Firm. She works daily with professionals that have law degrees, master’s degrees and advanced marketing degrees from schools named Harvard, Princeton and Northwestern. She makes six figures a year, lives in a modest town home and drives a paid for Acura, yet she’s terribly frustrated with this constant feeling of falling ever farther behind in life. As she put it to me, “I work seventy hours a week, spend an hour and a half a day in my car and another hour walking the dog.” (Yes, I go over and walk him too) She continued, “I have to sleep at least seven hours a day so I figure I have maybe two hours a day for myself. I admire you for trying to live your life the right way.”

Well, the jury’s still out on that one, but it points to something very important and why I’m on this journey of personal development and life exploration. “My Life” is simply too short to spend it day in and day out toiling for some large company in hopes that someday, just maybe I’ll be able to do the things I love to do. For most people in their lives that never happens. Imagine working hard, almost to exhaustion for forty years while raising a family, retiring and then being diagnosed with cancer. A fictional example you ask? No, that happened to my father in 1992 and he only lived two more painful years before succumbing to the disease in February of 1994. He was sixty nine years old when he died. It’s a lesson I’ll never forget. For other folks the recent financial crisis sent a frightening message through the masses. Look at the “Baby Boomer” generation. They face the specter of working a lifetime, retiring and then watching some calamity come along, devastating their nest eggs and leaving them financially hamstrung. Then what do they do? Do they live on their Social Security, in a little apartment somewhere with their traveling confined to going to the grocery store and watching the National Geographic channel and playing bingo? I don’t get that and I don’t want anything to do with that kind of mindset.

Life was meant to be lived right now, today, and with passion. Every single person has the talent and desire to express themselves in a multitude of ways that creates that internal joy that we all seek. Sadly only a small percentage of people ever earn a great living or even have the time to engage in things they enjoy, those very things that bring them pure joy and pleasure. My former wife is someone that loves to travel and as a small child she lived all over the world. Now she’s stuck with the occasional three day trip to Las Vegas and she doesn’t even gamble. She loves to reading, walking our dog on a misty spring morning, and sampling a fine Italian wine in a wonderful restaurant. She also enjoys volunteering and reading to disadvantaged kids and yet she’s caught up in this never-ending spiral of clearing the pile of paper off the desk and paying her bills. It drives me crazy.

After she and I were divorced I vowed I was going to re-create myself in my own image and the naysayers could be damned. Are times a bit tough for me right now? You bet your sweet bippy they are, yet I wouldn’t have it any other way. I now have the time to study, write, and explore the things that bring me great joy, for example capturing a beautiful image with my camera at sunset or writing a story that that makes me laugh, even if others might think I might be a bit crazy. I’m convinced that if I stay the course things will fall into place and then I will then be able to show others that they too can fulfill their dreams. If you ask just about anybody out there today, 3 out of 4 people will tell you they hate their jobs and they wish they could be doing something else. I hope to show people they can do something else and they don’t have to live their lives never having the time to enjoy themselves. I want to show them that if they have a little courage, they can actually let go and pursue their life’s passions and they’ll actually be rewarded both financially and spiritually for their faith in themselves. The first person I’m out to help is my lovely Ex-Wife because she’s got so much to offer this beautiful world and it’s not from behind a desk on the thirty second floor of an office building. Well, I gotta go. It’s a gorgeous Spring Day in Colorado and my bicycle is calling.