“Life is what you make it.” As anybody who’s been reading my blog is already aware, this is basically the mantra that I have chosen to live by. I recently got a request from an old friend to further explain this ideology and am now caught in a bit of a conundrum. The problem (well, not actually a “problem” … more of a “concern”) is that I honestly feel that I cannot logically explain this reasoning – I can only tell stories… It’s within the details of these stories that this viewpoint should become evident…However – since the request was made – I’m going to do my best to explain my reasoning. First, and foremost, I just want to clarify that I am not trying to tell anybody how they should be living their life. I am not, in any way whatsoever, qualified to be telling others what to do (hell, I’m hardly qualified to be telling myself what to do…) so, if you mistakenly take this post for my insisting that I am right and everyone should be thinking like me, then you’ve missed the point. I was asked to elaborate and elaborate I shall…
For me, the realization came when I got the opportunity to spend nine months working a contract job in Germany. I call it an “opportunity” now; at the time I wasn’t so sure. I had been rather recently put into a position where I was one of the far-too-many people in this country that are forced to take on the somewhat odious appellative – unemployed… And being “Coriolis the Unemployed” was most definitely something that I could NOT be doing for long. Like most working-class Americans, I had bills to pay. I most definitely needed to find a way to get some income!
Now the reason for my jaunt back to the world of the unemployed was no fault of my own. The company I was working for (Flextronics Semiconductor) got sold which basically meant that the entity that had been providing my much needed income ceased to exist. Sure, as is usually the case with these corporate shenanigans (Can I call the sale of an un-needed subsidiary a “shenanigan”? Sure … why not…?) I had the fortuity to basically re-interview with the purchasing company in an attempt to keep my job. There were some other negatives associated with this (apart from having to re-interview for a job I had been doing for the last five years) and I think I covered all this in a much earlier posting; however I basically chose not to attempt to keep the job. I was really getting sick of living my life as nothing more than a number to be bought and sold by the whims of some rich dudes that didn’t have any concern for “my” well being whatsoever…
So I guess my mindset began changing then, really. Up to this point in my life I had always just done what I believed was expected of me – which basically consisted of becoming yet another cog in the capitalistic machine that America runs on. I wasn’t really living my life so much as letting my life control me. Sure, I was actually making decisions that had effects on my life (this is unavoidable); however all of my actions were basically decided for me by my attempt at living the life I felt I was “supposed” to. For me, this insanity was about to change…
After deciding that I wasn’t really enjoying my job enough to justify re-interviewing for it and choosing rather to be unemployed – putting me in the position of needing to get money somewhere – the job in Germany popped up as a possible solution to my monetary woes. But it was a job in Germany … I didn’t speak German and, with my wonderful American public school education, had absolutely no knowledge of what would be required (both legally and personally) to work independently in Germany … could I even consider this? Fortunately, I didn’t need to “consider” it – due to my quickly dwindling monetary resources, the “consideration” was revoked – I had no choice. With slightly more than two weeks to prepare, I was off to live in Germany (on my own, mind you…) for a bit…
Now how all this relates to the “life is what you make it” mantra is buried in the details. The bottom line is that everything ended up just fine. I was basically forced to do something that intimidated me (Who am I kidding? It scared the shit out of me…) but I was able to pull it off. And not only did I pull it off, but the final result is that my life (personally and monetarily) is the best it has ever been! This kind of got me to wondering … perhaps I should take these risks more often…? Perhaps taking these risks is me “creating” my life? Perhaps the “stuck in a rut”, “doing what’s expected” life I had been living until then wasn’t really “living” at all? Perhaps choosing to become that cog is tantamount to death…
I have since then had some very interesting situations arise. I was – upon returning from Germany – once again unemployed; however it never really bothered me. I knew that I would find something somewhere … in time. Heck, maybe I’d head back to Europe and find another contract job … maybe somewhere else – Asia, perhaps? Maybe I’d be able to get a job in Colorado and actually have an opportunity to live in the house I’m currently paying for…? Maybe I’d get that chance to throw away the engineering world for good and become the professional poker player that I long so much to be? I was thinking, “anything but California…”
And here I am now … in California… I’ve got the best paying job I’ve ever had, I’ve once again got medical – and dental – insurance (been a while since I’ve had those…) and I’ve finally met a woman that loves me for who I am. I think I’m doing a decent job “making my life” so far…
bis später,
Coriolis
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