Flexible Journey How Embracing Growth Changed My Life
there are some great new year’s eve
traditions out there
but mine doesn’t center around midnight
or fireworks
or a group celebration my favorite
is to compose my end-of-year journal
entry
i write in my journal throughout the
course of the year but those first 364
days
it’s all dedicated to small events
little happenings basically something
for the archives
it all builds up to that last day though
when i get a chance to
encapsulate and summarize a year of life
how did i grow and change who did i meet
what new places what new experiences did
i get to take in
all those things come together on
december 31st for me every year
and every entry has its own theme and
its own impact they’re all special to me
but there’s one in particular that
stands out and that came
on the final day of 2018. it was a
beautiful morning i was actually home
for the holidays
and it was still quiet out in the woods
i went for a walk found a bench
fog was still coming through the trees
the only sound out there was this little
creek
ambling through the evergreens and it
gave me time to think
and reflect and while i was out there
amongst the green and the trees and the
peacefulness
i came to this epiphany
no matter what it may seem like we don’t
stop growing
not now not tomorrow not next year
maybe not even until we leave this earth
and i got there after thinking about all
these times earlier in my life
where i thought i had i had found the
finished version of me i was done
growing the
person i was today is the person i’ll be
in 50 60 70 years when i go to the grave
i realize the stupidity in that pretty
quickly time went on another couple
months maybe a year
passed and then i did find the finished
version of me
yeah i’m kidding it took another couple
cycles for it to finally hit home
that it really wasn’t going to happen
now or anytime in the future so that
morning
the last day before we turned the
calendar over to 2019
i changed my mindset altogether instead
of looking for the finished version of
me
or trying to find that end point of
growth i not only accepted
but embraced the idea that growth is
perpetual
and that it offers us all these
different avenues and branches
and frameworks to look at life through
and that is what makes it exciting
but let me take you even further back to
contextualize why i was in the mindset
of growth
and change rebirth transformation all
these things
i was a baseball broadcaster at the time
i spent seven years calling action in
collegiate wood bat leagues and
spent some time in the minor leagues as
well took me all over the country
it was a blast it was my dream job come
true
i was a kid in seattle growing up at the
age of five six
seven listening to mariners games every
night with the hall of fame voice of
dave niehaus narrating the action for me
and i wanted to be him and starting my
senior year of high school pretty much
every action i took directly indirectly
somewhere in between
was in search of accomplishing that goal
it didn’t matter to me that i was
missing family events and social time
and vacations
because i was doing not only what i
loved but for me
what i figured was my calling my destiny
my thing in life and that was something
i had looked for for a long time
see growing up the people i admired the
most the ones i saw the most success in
were the ones that had consistency they
had the same job their entire lives
they lived in the same place their whole
life
maybe they still had the same friends
that they had
in kindergarten all those things
inconsistency translated to success for
me
and so having baseball as that thing i
loved and could be happy with for years
and years and years
equaled success and everything
was great until it wasn’t
in the fall of 2018 i started hearing
a little noise coming from right around
here
this red pumping thing mine’s right
about here
you can check for yours i promise you
it’s there though we all have one
mine had been whispering me to me for a
long time that i wasn’t quite as happy
as i thought
and you see it was hard for me to listen
because i got so accustomed to listening
to the pink squishy thing up here you
know the one that has logic and sense
and
has a lot of security to it so when this
guy was trying to
holler at me feelings and emotions and
uncertainty was really hard to listen
but i remember one night specifically in
the fall of 2018 this guy got
so loud he was out shouting this one
and he was saying the reason you need
change
is you want something more out of life
you want to make a difference for others
with your work you want to contribute
positively to their lives
and he was right i wasn’t doing that
in baseball i wasn’t doing that anywhere
else in my life
and it took a lot of guts a lot of
courage to even
take a listen to what was being said and
i’ll tell you this
just by opening my ears to what was
coming out of here
made me feel like a failure
i felt like i was failing myself my
family
my friends co-workers even the strangers
that would tune in
to listen to the games i was calling
what were all those people going to
think
when i gave up my consistency and
happiness and success
to listen to feelings and emotions and
uncertainty and take a risk in life
naturally i thought it over for quite a
few months i did have to use a little
bit of this guy along the way but i
didn’t tune this out
this was a big part of me and at last
i decided the change was going to be
made i was going to leave
baseball and pursue firefighting
talking about sports running into
burning buildings
a bit of a difference it was terrifying
it was mortifying to think
that i had been on my track i had found
my thing my calling my happiness
and all of a sudden i was going to take
this leap of faith
and go elsewhere but i listened to my
heart
i made that leap and then i started
listening some more
you see where i was living at the time
when i made this decision
was a place that was not good for me i
was there because that’s where work was
this guy started to say take a look
somewhere else
i found fort collins colorado in the
fall of 2019.
this guy led me here and it’s one of the
best things that’s ever happened to me
you know what i listen some more
remember how i told you i wanted to go
into firefighting
i did i started at least part of the
training for that
was to get a certification as an emt and
while i was going through that process
he started yelling again out screaming
this guy
saying this is what you want to do
contributing to medicine contributing
directly to patients instead of running
into buildings and rappelling out of
windows
is how you can make your biggest impact
on others
so i listened again rediverted myself
to becoming an emt and recently got my
first job doing exactly that
and it felt so good to listen i kept on
doing it some more listen to my heart
when he was
asking me who i really was what values
were truly important to me
and what stuff maybe was a facade i was
putting up to either convince myself
or family or friends that i was happy in
my old way of doing
things but continuing to listen
down here it’s more than just
by the way he’s got some good stuff to
say
it all rejuvenated me and energized me
and it’s changed my outlook on the
future
even looking into the next couple years
where i’m currently at as an emt
the next step for me is to look into
becoming a paramedic and it’s something
that’s really exciting to me
but get this there’s a walden university
study out there that says the average
length of a paramedic career
fits on one hand it’s four years
now the old me would be freaking out
right now probably would have never even
started this venture
knowing that the length of my next
career
would be the same as my time in high
school
but the new me is kind of excited
because after potentially four years and
maybe it’ll be one maybe it’ll be 14
but whenever that time ends another
chapter gets to begin
and that’s how i see life in general
it’s this big story
with a lot of great chapters i love to
read my favorite books don’t have
three chapters they have 53 83
103 whatever it may be and each chapter
gives you a chance for new opportunities
new directions
new hope new outlooks on life
and that’s what excites me going forward
as well it’s not just career based
either
i think to the future when i get married
and have kids buy my first home
maybe move again change careers again
experience
new foods new cultures all these things
those are all
chapters i can add to this great story
of life that i’ve been writing
and it’s all centered around listening
here
instead of here there’s room for both
but by not muffling this guy anymore and
giving him some air time
it’s drastically changed my outlook on
life
and i hope the same can be true for you
no matter where you are
who you are what you are in life there’s
always time to stop
and listen and maybe make a change so
whether you’re in middle school or high
school right now maybe on the younger
side and
getting ready to take on the world of
adulthood and find your career and find
your pathway find where you want to live
go for it but if you feel the need to
change
once or twice or 32 times
as long as you’re giving this guy a
listen go for it
you know i was 24 when i started this
whole
rejuvenation maybe that’s you maybe
you’re already in a career
searching for a way to really make this
happy instead of just this
maybe you’re 34 maybe you’re 64. the
point is
it’s never too late to listen to what’s
coming from here
because this is your lifeblood it truly
is what keeps you going
and it knows you better than anyone it’s
been with you
since day one so stop
and give it a listen and i wish you all
the best
with the journeys you two can take
together because i found
the joys and the beauties in listening
and letting life take me where it can
and i hope you can do the same thank you