Understanding

In all things we see ourselves as being something entirely different from what we really are. Perhaps as a whole society we are deluded into a false belief of ’self.’ I spoke briefly with my father tonight and was attempting to strike up a conversation with him, though found it hard to do so. My whole life I cannot truly recall a time when I actually was able to speak with him frankly. Always as I have stated before our conversations have been when I have failed in something.

Though in continuing on what I was talking about, the discussion with my father, I believe that I am coming to the realization that I am not the person that I see in my mind’s eye. There I am courageous, helpful and full of prospect. Perhaps it is due to the way I have been brought up that I believe this ‘lie’ to be a ‘truth’. I have no way of knowing for sure or not of course, but it is there. The realization that has dawned on me is that perhaps I am none of those things, but in truth, perhaps I am craven, selfish and damned to being destitute. The dream of being wealthy is just that, a dream.

I have read often enough that perhaps I have set my dreams/goals at to high of a standard for myself right now. That maybe I should give myself ‘reasonable aspirations’, and start low and build myself high. To follow a tangent slightly, it is as my brother said one night about a week ago when we were speaking to one another.

“I have watched you and seen the things that you are capable of. You get involved in something and find that you excel at it… you don’t bide your time and build up to moving forward, you see the end game and want it then. Often enough you find that you are capable of getting it and just can’t hold onto it. Put it in this context. It is like the Marathon runner who in the first five miles of the race sprinting, and is winded even before he is a quarter through the race. You are like that, you attack with such tenaciousness and ferocity that you give no thought to the end game, to the last mile or two when you should have conserved your energy and sprinted towards the goal line.”

I have given some thought to that, and in doing so I believe that he is right. I don’t realize the end game and therefor do not understand why it is that I shouldn’t attack an opportunity when one presents itself. Though I am finding after reflecting on that some, I have found the qualities that I am lacking. Yes I know that I often get by on my natural charisma and charm. People will often overlook the qualities that I am lacking (in the business sense) to afford me the opportunity to hang myself. I cannot even begin to tell of the many jobs that I have failed in. Every job I have ever held for longer than a month I manage to find myself promoted into a managerial role. Though in doing so I find that sometimes I am truly unprepared to the task, but deny that to myself. I ‘know’ that I am fully capable of performing these tasks set out to me by my superiors but fail because I lack the proper ‘training’. Having found myself being promoted faster then my experience could actually account for.

My ambition has always been a motivating factor within myself; often times my mind has starved for a lack of it. It is a beast that needs to be fed, but cautiously. That is something that I am finally beginning to understand. The years I never knew that I should hold myself in reserve, to check my ambition. Its like the old saying of your eyes are bigger than the dinner set before you. Though hopefully with this understanding will come temperance of my previously unchecked ambition. In addition to this knowledge I am hoping that the assistance that I receive through therapy and counseling will also aid me in my understanding of why it is that I have failed numerous times in the past.

Perseverance is something that I am totally enthralled to. That I think is what bothered me most about my conversation with my father earlier tonight, the small talk that it was. He told me that he had survived for thirty years until things finally began to calm down for him, and he understood what it was that needed to be done. I suppose that I resent the fact that he never taught me how to succeed. Granted he instilled in me the desire to ’survive’ the will to manage it, but never gave me the drive to actually succeed. To learn true patience. I have the ambition, the drive, and the hunger. Often I achieve everything I set out to do, but only to find out that I am unequipped to retain what I have gained. In retrospect you could say that I resent them (my parents) for giving me that gift. For a gift it was to learn to survive, but to never have learned how to turn survival into success. I am chafing against the bit that burns in my mouth to realize there is right there in front of me the path to success, but getting on the road is easy enough… along the route I lose the way. I hate being lost, and am waking up to the fact that I truly am and that I need a guide to get me back to the road. So here I am, hoping that I am finding myself back on the road, and that this time I will have a guide with me to show me when I am beginning to press to much on to myself…

~ by joel trevino on October 20, 2007.