March 2010, I ended up home. I got a job as a waiter at a diner and I'm still living at home saving money. So after years and years of constant testing and school and college and teachers and exams and physical training and mental training...all of that...for a picture of me in a uniform.
Since then my confidence level has gone down significantly. I was at Target a week or so ago and two hot girls walked by. They didn't see me, of course...but an Army guy in uniform walked by. They both looked and said, "Mmm Military guys are hot". My heart sank. Literally. I felt the goose-bump chill that you get just before you cry. That's gone forever for me.
Knowing that I'll never be as happy or as confident as I once was crushed me. So I just kinda pass time, day by day. I used to envision a career in the Military, running for office, a beautiful wife and a log cabin style home with a shotgun above the fireplace and a ton of kids. Retirement at 42 with a pension and IRA savings...all of that is useless.
Vice President Biden, of all people. He gave a speech in May 2012...and he said EXACTLY...EXACTLY, what I feel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwZ6UfXm410 -- go to 3:32 and watch.
This isn't a question so much as a response. You, like so many people, created a very narrow path for your life to go down and when that path ended up being blocked by some unexpected obstacles, you couldn't walk around them or take another path. Instead, you seem to have more or less sat down on the ground and pitied yourself.
Most Americans never spend a single day in the armed forces. Some of them have miserable, empty lives but most find their purpose in other pursuits. Likewise, many military men go on to serve with honor and valor, but others fall into a downward spiral of PTSD, alcoholism and lack of civilian opportunities after their service has ended.
You're not going to have a career in the military. BFD. Why does that have to stop you from running for office, having a beautiful wife, a log cabin style home with a shotgun above the fireplace and a ton of kids? There are an infinite number of other ways to get all of those. And who's to say you wouldn't be just as happy with a Cape Cod style house with an oil painting of horses above the fireplace and only two children?
I'm the same age as you are and I very much would like to think, 60 or 70 years from now when I'm about to die, that my life mattered and that it meant something. But I've accepted that it's folly to demand a straight line from the present to 70 years from now and expect my life to never stray from that line. It just doesn't work that way. I could be paralyzed in a car accident tomorrow. My dad's rich, slightly mentally imbalanced sister could rewrite her will and leave everything to me. I could be falsely accused of murder and spend the rest of my life in prison.
"We are the children of the gods, and are never more the slaves of circumstances than when we deem ourselves their masters. What may next happen in the dazzling farce of life, the Fates only know."Benjamin Disraeli wrote that the night he was returned as an MP to Parliament for the first time. I doubt he knew that night that he would eventually become one of the most famous prime ministers in British history. I doubt he had any of that plotted out for himself when he was 25 years old.
So keep your chin up and keep walking forward every single day. Don't keep looking back at the path that was closed off to you because you'll just be distracted by the opportunities that are waiting in front of you.
