The past 6 years of my life have been some of the craziest years of my life, as they were the years that changed me the most.  I went from a head strong teenager who had life figured out, to a much more patient and understanding adult.  I've spent the last year evaluating this change and discovered quite a bit about myself.

Moving out was one of the huge influences in my evolution to adulthood.  My parents and I would constantly fight about any little thing.  My parents have always been people to ignore or downplay the more serious, and put emphasis on anything simple they thought they could control.    I was deeply depressed and did anything to make myself feel better, because my parents were simply not willing to help me with my problems.  Now that I've moved out, I realize that my expectations of them were too high.   It's easier to not resent them for that, now that I am the sole person responsible for my life.  It's even got to the point where I can almost thank them for neglecting me when I needed them the most.  I look back and realize that if they did try and even acknowledge my issues, that any help they would have offered would have been rejected.   I was too resentful to accept it.  They forced me to learn life's lessons the hard way... maybe they knew more than I did, that, that was the only way I could have learned it. 

 Every high school student expects to achieve their goals the way they want to achieve them.  They expect to find a rewarding career in the field they desire and will have the means to do it when the time comes.   Why wouldn't they? Kids are raised to think that they can grow up to be anything they want to be.   It's also the reason I thought that it would be nothing for me to take a year off and go back to finish when I had my home situation settled.  Finding out how wrong I was, was a pivotal point in my life and they way I thought of it.   When you give up, there isn't always going to be somewhere there to tell you to try again.... in fact you might just find someone willing to push you in all the wrong directions.  That's where real personal responsibility all starts to make real sense.   I realized that sometimes you have to make tough choices with no assistance, and much resilience in order to get where you need to be.

 Being in the work force has also toned down my expectations of life as well.  Going into website design I figured that because I am good at design, I could run my own business, be my own boss, and have the life of wealth and freedom that I expected to come with.   I've always been a good team leader, and great problem solver when it comes to certain tasks.  You would think those are some respectable traits, but they are minimal expectations.  No matter how much effort you put into something, the imperfections are always going to stand out above all else.  Not letting a lack of "good job Bernie" put a damper on my motivation was a very difficult thing for me to do.   Web Design has always been a hobby of mine, mostly because it helped people, allowed me to be creative - that was my reward.  I wasn't going to allow this fact of life ruin my hobby for me, so I decided to pursue employment where not being rewarded  didn't mean so much to me, because I wasn't as passionate or proud of what I was doing.... not to say that I wasn't at all... just not enough to take real offense to people's expectations sometimes.   It's taught me that there's more to gain than praise for my efforts.  Experience being the one that tops that list. 


 More recently, working for/with my dad has opened my eyes to some things that I missed during my childhood.  Not only have I taken interest in what he's been doing to put a roof over my head all these years, but I've gained a whole new respect for him.   I always knew that my dad was a hard worker, always being away from the family at work, and from what my mother has told me time and time again.  But doing what he does, starting like he started, has brought it all home for me.  Now I understand more than my mom, how hard of a worker my dad is.   In addition to that, I also know that my dad only gave me this opportunity because he knows that I'm grown up enough to not let him down like I have so many times in the past.   The relationship we have now is a direct reflection of the turn my life has taken.

 That brings me to the story from which this blog was inspired.   The friday before last was my last day of work this season.  Work was slowing to a stand still, it was so bad they probably could have laid me off a few days prior, but let me work out the rest of the week.  Normally I'm a general labor/welder/millwright assistant, but they needed an extra hand and pair of eyes on a big alternator job.   They were reluctant to take me along, but I had nothing better to do... my boss even referred to it as being a learning experience for me.   Next thing I know I was responsible for making sure a $500,000 8 ton alternator coil didn't collide with anything while we put it back into it's outer coil with chain faults and come-alongs.  It's one of the bigger responsibilities they've given to me so far.  At break one of the guys mentioned something a long the lines of me being a better worker than one of the other boss's kids who was around the same age as me.   It's not saying much since that kid fell asleep on the job twice, and walked off of or didn't show up to numerous shifts.  None the less they were surprised to see me pulling my weight.  Let's just say they liked my attitude.   He started talking about how lazy and ungrateful his kids were.  It reminded me of my younger self.   "I should have you talk to my kids" he said.    I smiled and said "Oh, they'll figure it out some day".