The other day I was taking stock of where I am in life. At 49 years of age, I did a little introspection, which is like surgery except no anesthesia is required,and the insurance forms are a lot simpler.
(Anecdote of this blog entry is sponsored by...)
Looking back, it's amazing I ever graduated from college, much less from high school. Now, this would be an excellent place to insert a cop out statement like "because I'm stupid". Well, upon further reflection I've come to learn that stupid people don't use commas. Ever notice that? It's true. They might word such a sentence thus: " Ol Henry says your coming over for Thanksgiving to boil the turkey". Of course, you might assume Henry's friend is stupid because he wants to boil the turkey. Heck, you might even call me stupid for assuming that the sentence is about Henry's friend when we don't have any way of knowing whether or not the two are even friends to begin with.
I'm not trying to be mean by calling some people stupid. What right does a crazy person like me have to judge the value of anyone? It's an inescapable fact, though, that some of us can only paddle so far across the sea of reason before we learn that our boat sprung a leak back at the dock. (Okay, that's a horrible metaphor, unless we're willing to agree that we're talking about a really, really small sea.) I'm making it across the sea because of no leaks in the boat. That's because crazy folks like me row ourselves across tiny seas without boats.
With all of that ado a-done, let's get down to brass tacks, Betty. The whole point of this blog entry is to share with you that I'm "looking forward by looking back". It must be, since that's the title of this pig. When we were in high school, I skipped so many days that the county school system revised the total number of allowable yearly absences. Boy, did my grades reflect it. I fell so far behind my classmates that I almost dropped out of high school. Somehow, I crawled my way, inch by inch, through my subjects and managed to graduate -barely.
Then, in college I did the same thing, with the same results. Since college wasn't for me (during the second half of Carter's term, at least), I decided to try the military. My MTI (military training instructor) proclaimed me the "most improved Airman" he had ever seen in over ten years of MTI'ing. In my case, I had gone from doing everything wrong to doing everything right. Except, of course, being unable to keep a raging bipolar disorder from seeping out. Not that I've aired that dirty laundry 312 times already, but I only bring that point up to explain why my military career, although honorable, was shorter than Robin William's attention span. Yep, I had failed at Air Forcing, too.
See a pattern here? Hmm.
Several years later I had discovered that pattern myself. I did something about it, too. First, I discovered that textbooks weren't optional. Then I found out that reading them coincides with lectures and exams. Finally, at age 33 I graduated from college. Call me an underclassman by, um, about eleven years. I always was a late bloomer. Over time, I've learned what approaches toward challenges work and what don't. I learned how not to do things.
That latter point stays with me to this day. Looking back, I had had to learn how to do things by first learning how not to do them. In high school, I learned not to skip school. In college (the first time), ditto. In basic training, I learned that there really is something called the inspection side, and that MTI's get highly po'd if you try to do things your way. (Maybe I should have included "egocentrism" in the title, no?) Heck, the first time I repaired the body of my first car, I was introduced to sandpaper. I was so naive that I thought "grit" was brand name and the grit numbers were stock numbers of some kind. Sanding block? Aw, that's for sissies. Just rub all the old paint off of the car and the new paint will smooth everything over. Paint it dark green and bring it home.
Boy, was I wrong. There were so many severe flaws in the bodywork (now being proudly reflected by all that shiny new paint) that you'd have thought the Jolly Green Giant had drooled a half-chewed green bean. That car was ugly. To say I was disappointed and embarrassed would be akin to calling Donald Trump's hair artificial. The neighbors were relieved that it finally had paint -until they got close to it. Then they demanded that I put it back in primer and rust. That's how ugly it was.
But I learned.
I learned that you can, in fact, learn from mistakes. In my case, I learned that I was smart enough not only to make mistakes, but smart enough not to make the same mistake twice. It's important to be creative when making mistakes. Reruns only make people mad. Mistakes should be judged not only from a standpoint of severity but also from originality. If you turn in a report with a bunch of typos, your boss won't be amused. Ah, but turn in that report while wearing water wings, a ski mask, and a pair of antennas, and see if your boss doesn't laugh.
I look forward to success even though it's coming later rather than sooner. I'm looking forward, because I've spent quality time looking back. Not only have I learned from a large number of mistakes, I've always found something to laugh about when recalling them. Rooftops aren't good places for frisbee games. Not that I've ever tried that, but if I had and survived, boy would I have included that here. Getting into the middle of a dog fight at age fifteen was definitely a mistake, but how many people can say, "well, I lost, but so what? I'm not a dog!"
I look forward to a wild ride. So far, that has often been the norm for me. I've learned not to shy away from either my success or my failures. People used to talk about how many home runs Babe Ruth hit in his career, but he was the only one who never shied away from addressing how many times he struck out. In my case, I've fanned at so many metaphorical baseballs that you can no longer accept that global warming is occurring. But I've also overcome some very overwhelming odds along the way. Both the failures and the success will, I believe, show that I've been looking forward as a result of looking rearward.
I look forward to a great life.
Hopefully, I'll be nineteen when success comes. My knees felt great then.
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