Buy the ticket, take the ride

A note, mostly to myself, about decision-making and life changes.

Is there a point to all of this?
Let’s find a point.

If you spend enough time around me, you’ll hear me talk about fear and love. This is usually tied to decision-making. I will often say things like “I don’t want to make decisions based on fear, I want to make them out of love.”

I was going back through some old Bill Hicks standup this week, a thing that I highly recommend doing from time to time when you’re in the proper place to receive it, and I came across the section below and I think it’s been stuck in my brain for a long time without me realizing where it came from:

Here’s the important part, if you’d rather read it (emphasis is mine):

It's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.

Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

While I don’t usually shy away from the political implications of a statement like that, today I will. Because today I am talking about myself (shocker, I know). Today, I am choosing love.

Learning to love myself

I’ve been going to therapy for a few years now. I wish I had started a couple of decades ago, but there’s no way to change the past.

One of the most important things I have learned about myself in therapy is that the grace that I give to the rest of the world, I do not give to myself. Because I genuinely love people, I believe in the best of human nature, but I find it hard to love myself. Always have.

I’m sure the reasons for that are many layers deep, I don’t fully understand them myself, but the inability to love myself also fucks with my confidence and self-esteem at times. Which is why it was interesting when, a few months back, my therapist asked me…

“What is it that you’ve always wanted to do?”

It was somewhat out of the blue, at least enough that I don’t need to waste time explaining the context of the conversation. I tried to give some quick answer about dreaming of being a GM of an NBA team or something to that effect, but he pushed me to think seriously and thoughtfully about it.

“Is there anything realistic that you have always wanted to do but thought that you couldn’t?”

That one I knew that answer to. A couple of my closest friends might too, although not all of them.

I have wanted to be a therapist for about twenty years now. The way you could get to that answer was to ask me what I would’ve done with my life if I could’ve started over. I would’ve become a therapist, the type that sits with people of all sorts and helps them through their troubles and the struggles of everyday life. A person that would listen to those that need someone to listen.

So, why didn’t I do it? A few reasons that are easy to explain. I didn’t have the time, I didn’t have the money, and I assumed that I wouldn’t be any good at it - both the school part and the therapist part.

But not everyone’s journey is the same. Do I want it enough to sacrifice my nights and weekends for class and homework? Do I want it enough to scrimp and save and maybe go into debt for a while to make it happen? The answer to both questions is yes, even before I got laid off from my job (which has temporarily created more time and less money).

What about the not being any good at it part? I was a pretty awful student, one of the reasons I decided against going to college straight after high school. And I assumed I wouldn’t be a good therapist because…..I’m not a therapist?

I know that doesn’t make sense to most people. My struggles with confidence have led me to a place where it’s hard for me to believe that I can do a thing that I’ve never done before, much less do it well. But I also know that once I get going on something, I tend to give it all I can and see it through to the end.

Don’t make decisions out of fear, make them out of love

So, here we go. Just before turning 40 years old, I decided on a major career change. So major that I have to go to college for 5 (or more!) years before they’ll even let me start trying to do the job. Hopefully, by then, I will have the confidence of a successful academic venture to convince me that I’m ready.

And I’m glad that Bill Hicks quote lodged itself into my brain all those years ago. If it hadn’t, I would probably be backing away from this decision. I suppose there will be a number of times when I will want to, but that would be giving into fear. That would likely be making a decision based entirely on fear.

Instead, I’m going to buy the ticket and take the ride. I’m sure there will be ups and downs, that’s part of the journey.

But I keep imagining future events that haven’t taken place yet: Acing a final exam, calling myself a college graduate, my first session as a therapist…and I love the person I am in these daydreams. It feels like the person I could’ve been had I loved and trusted myself from the beginning.

Every journey is different and no two people get to the same place the same way. There’s no guarantee I make it to any of those daydreams, but making the decision and starting on the path is how I can make for a better ride.

Wish me luck.

A note about forgiveness

It’s okay if I don’t make it to the end of this. It’s okay if, five years from now, I am not a therapist and not attending school anymore. Things change, life happens and all we have control over is what is right in front of us. It doesn’t have to be viewed as a failure and I don’t have to hate myself if things don’t go according to plan.

I am still looking for work, I need to pay the bills somehow, and maybe I land somewhere that is so fulfilling that I change my mind on what my long-term goals are.

Or maybe I was a bad student not out of immaturity, or as a reaction to teenage trauma, but because I genuinely hate learning in a classroom environment.

Who knows what can or will happen in the next five years? There’s a part of me, the fearful part, that wants to hide under the covers until it feels safe to come out. I’m sure we all have that, to varying degrees. My goal, right now, is to try to not let that part win….and to give myself the grace of humanity, of living the imperfect life of an imperfect being, if the best-laid plans of mice and men find a way to go awry.