I Don’t Know Where I’m Going
What else was I going to do?
What else was I going to do?
If you’ve read my work before, you might wonder, “Hey, I know who you are.”
“Oh, you do?” I’d say in return.
You would say, “You’re a writer, poet, community organizer, father, husband, and busy as hell.”
All of those are true, yet I am more lost than ever. Perhaps it’s the inability to see forward that causes it. If I knew where this was all going, I wouldn’t feel so aimless.
As a kid, my parents told me precisely what would happen in my future. I would go to high school and college and then figure out what I should do with my life. I’d pick a job and be happy.
What nonsense! It’s not like I’ve spent my whole life bouncing around, trying to turn one hobby into a career after another.
Oh, wait. Yes, I have.
In high school, I lived and breathed music and theater. I started playing percussion in the sixth grade and was reasonably good compared to the others in school. I was always the second chair to a kid named Michael, my age. However, I joined the top concert, marching, and jazz bands and even played drums for the orchestra during musical theater in my junior and senior years. When it came time for college, it seemed like a no-brainer to continue my musical journey at the University of North Texas, one of the top music schools in the country.
What else was I going to do? It was all I knew, the only thing I seemed to do well and enjoyed.
My friends told me to “go into computers” as if they knew what that phrase meant. I liked playing computer games as much as the next ’90s teen and eventually got into building my computers, but a hobby doesn’t always become a great career choice.
So, in 2001, I started college at UNT and found my skills were not unique compared to others, but far from bad. I was considered talented, but I could have been more exceptional. After the first semester, I called my mom and wanted to change majors, but she told me to stick it out and that I would adjust and improve. However, I didn’t know what to do after two and a half years and thousands of dollars in student loans because my love for music had run out.
What else did I like to do besides music? I liked to talk. I was a great conversationalist to everyone who knew me. My friends, girlfriends, lovers, and parents enjoyed talking to me. A communications degree seemed like an obvious decision.
After all, acting, public speaking, speech writing, logical reasoning, and more came naturally to me due to my time on stage in middle and high school. No one knew I was just bored and lost.
What else was I going to do? It was all I knew, the only thing I seemed to do well and enjoyed.
Another four years went by, and in 2007, I graduated with a degree in Communications with a minor in rhetorical theory. I could talk to you in circles and constantly use it to win arguments with my friends and wife, who refused to engage me in most debates. On the other hand, my brothers still knew how to play me.
After graduating, I again discovered all the skills I had learned amounted to terribly little in the outside world. Interestingly, I looked at job postings and found no one needed a “Good Listener” or “Beginner Level Talker.” So, at 25, with my first child on the way, I fell back to my long-lost hobby–computers.
What else was I going to do? It was all I knew, the only thing I seemed to do well and enjoyed.
I landed my dream job at an Apple Store in Fort Worth, and I saw the release of the first few iPhones and even the iPad. Also, I stayed long enough to watch Steve Jobs grow older, become ill with cancer, and die. I worked long hours overnight as a part of the visuals team until 6 a.m. after working a whole shift, all while being part-time for $10 an hour.
Eventually, I was promoted to full-time and climbed the ladder to become a Genius behind the Genius Bar. For those unfamiliar with the term, I was a technician who fixed computers and iPhones.But, after five years, I couldn’t stand missing holidays, delaying family get-togethers, or missing my children. I quit Apple in 2013 and moved into Information Technology for a non-profit on their helpdesk team.
After five additional years, now 32 years old, I didn’t want to be a helpdesk technician and moved into cloud computing. I bounced around related jobs, working for different online elearning platforms, and I still do.
A few years ago, nearly 40 years old, I had a cancer scare (which wasn’t cancer) that changed my views on life. It caused a shift in my religious, spiritual, and philosophical beliefs. I became heavily involved in Taoist philosophy and ideology, raised three children into their teens, and found my son was special needs.
After everything in my career, family, and life choices, I discovered I had decades of experience I could share. So, I tried to convey the intense emotions I previously kept contained through a newfound desire to write. I wrote poetry and stories in college, but had set that aside for computers. Now, I picked up the practice of writing again and gathered others around me who shared my desire.
What else was I going to do? It was all I knew, the only thing I seemed to do well and enjoyed.
Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t connect the dots going forward, only looking backward.” But it’s hard to connect any dots when I look at my life. I don’t see a straight line from point to point like a bird or airplane. Instead, I see a web — a patchwork of train tracks spread throughout the sprawling city of my existence.
There was never a map or a tour guide. I thought about the challenges life presented and made a choice. No book or voice from heaven told me what to do when my 19-year-old girlfriend was pregnant with my kid or what college to attend. What book of the Bible or verse from Tao Te Ching taught me what career I needed to choose? Religion and philosophy didn’t answer my questions or give me the answer to life’s hardships. However, they did provide me with boundaries.
If I’m a car, and my life is a tangled mess of a highway system (welcome to Dallas), then Taoism is my double yellow line. It’s not my Google Maps or GPS since it won’t tell me where to go, but it will help me stay on the correct side of the road. Taoism helps me know where I might go. I can look around and see who’s on the same side of the road. We don’t all have the same destination, but we travel together.
I’m slower now. I make decisions when they arise and never worry about the past. Even looking backward, life isn’t always a game of connecting the dots because no one can understand the trillions of actions that caused you to be where you are today.
The story of the Chinese farmer by Alan Watts teaches us that no one can know if an event is good fortune or bad fortune. So, looking back at my own life, I only know that everything I have experienced happened. The circumstances didn’t have to occur in the way they did, and I rarely chose a path that did not end in a completely different solution than I planned.
My journey, life, and experiences create a picture of my origin, but not a crystal ball of my destination. No one can know their destiny for certain, and your guess is as good as mine as where yours will lead. I do, however, know a single truth I’d like to share.
I am me, and I am going. So, let’s get started.