Cherish what you have While you have it! Part II

5^th of April 2007

Cherish what you have While you have it!

No body ever claimed life would be easy. Sometimes you get lost in the envy of seeing those who have more and for whom life come so easily. I hope you can realize that the person you envy might be doing the same thing to you.

I learned a very hard lesson early in life, which was playing the envy game, only makes you long for that which you don’t have. Instead of loosing myself in what I didn’t receive, I took stock in what I did possess, but more importantly those things necessary to accomplish my goals. Yes, I am human and notice how other people have skills and success thrust upon them, but success is defined differently for each individual person and is almost never the same thing for you or for me.

Let me explain what I mean. I grew up in the shadow of my older brother. Barely one year older than I, and he possessed a photogenic memory with an intelligence that few would ever achieve. I had to study non stop to score a low “C” on an exam, while my brother never cracked a book or if he did it was five minutes before the test and he would always receive an “A” on the same exam. Popularity came easy for him as did any sport and so did the ladies. They would swoon in his presence and no matter what he did, he was cool. I on the other hand barely had friends, however I knew everybody. I was strategic in my decisions with how to achieve any goal. I can’t take a test to save my life and women…well, let’s just say I’m glad I’m gay, because I could never romantically approach a girl. We were polar opposites from the first day and remain as such still today.

My brother could have been a history maker, a politician, a doctor, a lawyer, a Nobel Prize winning scientist; he could have been anything he wanted to be. However, he has fought drug addiction for more than half his life, he just lost an amazing women who loved him and he is repeating the failures of our parents by slowly killing his two beautiful children.

His life is such a sharp contrast to mine. He has the greatest challenges given to him with such ease that they bare challenge at all. Before I ever took my first breath, life itself has been my greatest challenge. For a white man, I have had to fight against homophobia even within my own skin. Growing up in a small Southern town brings about a closeness that will either divide or concur the weak. In my house, I was always and remain to this day, the weak even to my own family members. Because of this and blatant hate, I left home after graduating High School at the age of seventeen years old. When I left home I had everything a person could ever need to be on their own. I worked very hard and became a department manager before I was even close to twenty years old for a grocery store chain and later as I turned twenty-one I was running an 8.4 million dollar operation for Marriott Host in Boston Massachusetts. I tried going back to school because I always wanted to work with computers, but can’t test my way out of a paper bag. Computers and networks came natural to me, so I worked my way up the ranks in the industry devoting almost twenty years to jobs that I loved. I have worked with some of the largest companies in the world and have done some truly amazing things in my career. I crawled my way out of the poverty stricken, abusive childhood recording a true success story each step of the way. Money and possessions were not how I measured my success, but I came to know the finer things in life by teaching myself about culture with style and class. It wasn’t just making six figures before I turn 35 years old, but it was everything about my rise from the ashes of despair. It was making good money, but giving back far more than anyone needed too. It was having such close friends who loved me and with whom I loved and isn’t that the true definition of family. It was finding that one thing I never thought anyone in my family would ever achieve, experiencing true unconditional love that enlightened me. I believed in myself when no one else would. It was having self confidence in who I was, but most of all it was the love I had for myself that had me struggling for so many years. I’ve climbed out of the lowest debts of the gutter and have soared to the highest peaks that most people can ever claim to have reached. I went against the odds and won when no one even dared challenging my picture of success.

However, it took less than a year to destroy it all. I was making decisions for two, when only one was present. I lost everything that meant anything too me and along the way I lost myself in the exchange. I watched it slip away with incredible speed and precision all fostered on the wings of LOVE, but the experience appears to move in slow motion. I collapsed to points far lower than I ever started from and every attempt to claw my way out failed miserably. For more than seven years my life, my world and my dignity have all been meticulously stripped away. The shell that appears before you is but a mirage that can’t seem to get out of its own way allowing what ever is left to struggle back in to existence.

People who use to listen to me professionally won’t even return my calls. I can’t find any job anywhere close to the skills I posses failure mounts on top of each attempt. I can’t even get interviews from the jobs that seem to be at everybody else’s finger tips. All those wonderful things I once purchased have evaporated away as if to taunt me as they left and where once their place was known, they were now treasured never to be seen again. I could bear to loose everything if only I could grab hold of any sliver of hope, but after seven years of searching for any job and finding nothing. I can’t even get out of my own way. There is no pride, no self worth and absolutely no love for me, finding anything resembling life would take a scientist at the current moment. My family has been a constant factor hammering the next nail in to my coffin before the previous one was completely inserted and with no support my floundering dropped me to greater depths than even I could imagine. Friends that once stood by my side have all but been chased away leaving no one to listen to my sad recollections of the once story book life that now marks disgrace and ruin.

I climbed to heights very few ever got an opportunity to reach. I have succeeded at finding points lower than anyone could imagine falling too. I have worked harder during the past seven years than I ever did in my original climb to success. I have had more setbacks than any one person could ever think imaginable and all of this seems unreal to me now. Can life be so cruel and so cold? Yes, it obviously can! One would think coming out from my background with abusive parents and fighting my way out of such a homophobic environment that I would deserve far greater than the Universe is handing me. I always felt we create our own opportunities. In the past when life handed me a bad turn, I flipped it around and made it a great step to tomorrow. So why can’t I do that today? Why can’t I turn this around now? Why is life so determined to destroy everything that has become me?

Why has life forsaken me?

Updated: The 19^th of August 2007

This was the pain I felt less than one year ago and its shadow still shows me what skepticism can really do to a life. I finally found a good company with people who believe in me. I found that within my own heart, I could even start to believe in myself again when all else had failed time and again. I am the person that made a good man of myself once before…and I am doing it better the second time around. The struggle is harder and the walls are more treacherous than I could have imaged them ever being. However, I am making my way out. I will find the heart that beats within this soul again and I promise to never forget what believing in me is like ever again.