Somehow, I think I knew from a very early age then I was going to grow up and ”not amount to very much.”
It wasn't that I felt defeated or defeatist; it was more a case of recognizing very early I seemed to lack the "get up and go gene" that everyone else seemed to have.
No Clear Sense of Direction...
I never really had much of a clear idea when it came to answering the question ”what do you want to be when you grow up?” In general, the adults were not very happy with my typical answer which consisted of shuffling my feet uncomfortably and saying ”I dunno.”
Very few things actually sounded appealing. When I got around to being a teenager, the thought of ”writing stories” was moderately appealing, particularly once I learned that authors earn royalties... meaning that I could do the work once (create a book) and then pretty much not do anything after. At least that was my impression.
Mostly, I just enjoyed working on my stamp collection, writing "stories" in my journal, drawing little colorful patterns on scraps of paper in and margins of books, looking at flowers and insects sure close-up, and finding things in nature and elsewhere that seemed to have value to adult people.
The years rolled on by and I finished high school. I even got good grades and diplomas with honors. I'd also gotten pretty good at golf, by which I actually mean really good, and at 18 seriously entertained the idea of going on the pro tour in Europe. The idea of writing stories still sounded appealing, and I also really enjoyed working with my stamp collection and considered the possibility of becoming a stamp dealer for a living.
Of course, none of the adults around me thought any of these things even remotely resembled what a young man with a good brain should be doing. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed that it would be a good idea to go to college if for no other reason than I would be able to postpone making any kind of decision for another four to five years... and if I played my cards right, it would take me far away from direct family pressures.
To say that I was an unmotivated young man would be a great understatement!
Welcome to Texas!
I did definitely succeed in getting *"far away" from familial influence.. by going to college in Austin, Texas, some 5,500 miles from Denmark...
I graduated with double degrees in marketing and finance — with ”high honors,” even — but still really had no idea what I wanted to do. It wasn't that I didn't recognize the looming necessity to make money purely for the purpose of survival, but there just wasn't really anything work-wise that sounded appealing.
For a while I worked with a buddy of mine from college as house painters and doing ”make ready” on rental properties in the university area. It wasn't much of anything, but at least it paid the bills and kept a roof over my head.
A Change of Perspective
On one fateful day in ended up talking at length to an older couple I had become friends with because they owned a bunch of houses and duplexes, and they would usually call me whenever there was a change of renters and the places needed to be cleaned up and given a fresh coat of paint.
We got into an in depth conversation about working because they were very surprised to learn that I had such a high powered education yet I was walking around painting houses and cleaning up after filthy renters. They helped me a lot by reframing how I was approaching ”what to do” by suggesting that I instead ask myself the question ”where do you see yourself in 20 years from now?”
Evidently, I DID Have Early Ambitions...
One of the things I learned about myself was that my ”aspirations” largely consisted of working at something that made enough money that I could survive, and would allow me to put every single cent I could afford into investments with an eye towards gradually building enough wealth that I could just live off the passive investment income from that wealth.
I had figured — at that (college) time — that I could scrape by on about $12,000 a year, so if I could do something that made $30,000 a year I could squirrel away $18,000 a year into investments. At least that sounded pretty good on paper! It sounded less good once I took taxes into account as well as the fact that I was getting married and my would-be wife had zero inclination to live a minimalist lifestyle.
So, Start Your Own!
At around the same time, a German friend and I had been punting around the idea of starting a small import business with an attached retail store. This was mostly motivated by the fact that there were a bunch of things we missed being able to buy locally that we were used to back in Europe, along with the fact that there was a fairly substantial number of Europeans living in our area.
It was an ill-advised move, as most of those Europeans were getting away from their old lives, rather than longing for what they'd left behind. But we were young and stupid... and persuasive enough to go $375,000 in debt.
In time, that import business and store became what I did during the latter parts of my 20s and all of my 30s. Unfortunately, the dream of building an investment portfolio I could live off of never materialized. Much of the time, simply living seemed to cost more than I was able to earn... a pattern that has followed me my entire adult life.
Children are Wise!
As I look backwards from my current age of 61, I realize that those 14 years in business are the closest thing to anything consistent I have ever done. Pretty much everything else in my work life has consisted of ”doing odd bits and pieces here and there.”
The primary reason I ended up writing this post and having this morning of reflection, it's that there is a certain symmetry to the fact that I sit here today consistently ”writing stories” in the form of virtually daily blog posts; I still make a large part of my living from selling old stamps on eBay and other venues; I ”find things” via estate sales and flea markets and resell them; and I still draw those tiny little patterns that I enjoyed as a youngster, except I now paint them on rocks and they have become my sideline art business.
Oftentimes, it holds true that we have a lot of wisdom when we are children. Even if we don't obviously state that we want to be firemen or veterinarians or bank managers, there are hints about our future direction hidden in our interests.
I once attended a "work purpose" retreat and one of the exercises entailed writing down our five most favorite things to do before we reached age 12. The point was that our "true calling" would most likely be an "adult version" of one or more of those. In my case, three of those!
Thanks for reading, and have a great rest of your day!
How about YOU? Did you have a clear sense of what you wanted to DO when you grew up? Does your life today resemble what you hoped for when you were 18... or 25? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20211214 23:51 PST
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