That comment about committing career suicide is a bit over the top but it is how I feel.
I don't believe you mentioned career suicide before. Just suicide, and that's my concern. You sound like someone on the ropes right now, who is feeling hopeless. That shouldn't be. There is hope. It may not be the hope you want...you may or may not be flying the kind of equipment you had hoped for during your early carrer. I don't know you, don't know your situation, but there's hope. Perhaps it won't be the type of equipment...perhaps you'll be flying a 737 instead of a 777...is that a bad thing? I can't say, but flying or not, regardless of weather you have your picture taken in a retiring captain's uniform or next to a garden you've helped tend...does it really matter?
When we get so tied to our jobs, our vehicles for earning, that we tie our identity to them and our hope as a living soul, then we risk it all when we see a downturn in our lives or in the economy. Aviation is fickle. It ebbs and flows. Our lives, however, are not. The reality is that most likely we will be here on this earth a whole lot longer than our jobs will be. We were alive before we got our jobs, and we will hopefully be alive after we end our jobs. We go home at the end of the day, or week, or trip. But somehow, somewhere, we do go home.
The airplane stays behind. It is, without or without us. We are, with or without the airplane. Some despondency is normal; it's okay to feel up or down. But you weren't talking career suicide before...you brought suicide into the conversation and alluded to it more than once. PM me if you want to talk about it privately. That's okay. No names, no threat...just talk. I understand depression, believe me. But I also understand that what gets light, gets dark, gets light again...follow me?
Therefore I am not addressing those of you who desire to be the garbage men of the sky.
You're going to have a hard time winning friends and influencing others with statements like that, though I suspect that's not your goal here. For what it's worth, I've spent a fair amount of time being a real garbageman of the sky, spreading manure and things that make other things grow from airplanes...and I can't think of a better job in aviation. I've done many of them, but I haven't found one I liked better, yet.
I sacrificed much in my life to reach this point in my career.
Have you sacrificed it, or lived it? We all sacrifice, but we need to understand that sacrifice lives in two parts. One is that it involves giving up something good to get something better...the other part is that it involves giving up.
When we sacrifice and don't see or visualize the fruits of that sacrifice, we're just giving up. But no action is without a reaction. When we sacrifice and give something up, there is a flip side...the results. If we compare our sacrifice to all the things we don't have, then we feel as if we're giving up. That is not right.
I sacrifice time and money for a child's happiness. If I imagine that my money is gone and that I didn't see a dollar return for my time, then perhaps I might say I have sacrificed and lost. But a child's smile can keep me warm at night, unlike a blanket or a fire. A child's "I love you" or "thank you" can make me cry like no disaster or calamity ever could hope to do. In making the sacrifice, I need to think of the returns; can happiness be bought? Probably not, but the small price paid for helping another, for seeing that smile, or even thinking about it, is as close as I might ever come, and in truth, it comes without a price.
You spent years of sacrifice. You saw things from your cockpit that few others ever will. You flew high, you flew low. You had frustrations, moments of fear. Moments of elation. You learned that what you set your mind to doing, you could do, and you've done it. You've flown at many levels, you've flown airliners, just as you set out to do. Are you where you wanted to be yet? Not yet, as you said. But if you'd sat on a couch and watched television all these years, you'd be just as old, and you'd have missed it all. What did you gain from your sacrifie? You gained your life, to start. That's not a small thing.
As you may have guessed I missed the mark by just a few inches. I have every right to be disappointed.
I won't argue your right to be disappointed. That's for every man to decide for himself. I can't tell you weather you've missed your mark; you've already judged that for yourself. If your life isn't over yet, however, you haven't missed the mark...you just haven't reached it yet.
There's also such a thing as looking beyond the mark. Not seeing the forest for the trees. If you're like a lot of us, you're faced with or have been faced with divorce, one of the most devestating things that can happen in one's life. If you've faced personal loss and the shattering of your world in one form or another, sometimes it does seem as though nothing can ever be put right. Things end, life doesn't. You are still here. I can't tell you that you will be making a quarter of a million dollars a year, but I can tell you that if that's your goal in life, you have the option right up until you can no longer draw breath, and also that there are far, far more important things in life. Like drawing breath. See the correlation there?
Breathing is important. Making a quarter of a million dollars feels important, but it's far less than breathing, and if one stops breathing, it's not important at all.
There's no tomorrow to worry about...tomorrow never comes. Yesterday doesn't exist, but in memory. What you have is right here, right now. That's you, and your ability to be happy right where you are. If you're not happy here, you'll never be happy, because you will never be anywhere but here, in the moment. You can plan for tomorrow, but tomorrow is always a theory, because when you get to tomorrow, you'll learn it's just another today. Right here, right now, today. Life doesn't end because we don't achieve material things...life is right here, right now.
It's not over. Don't think of it as being over. Trite as it sounds, today really is the first day of the rest of your life. Mine too. Missed the mark? Not hardly...but that discussion is for tomorrow.
PM me if you wish. PM someone else if you wish. Talk to someone. Don't let this attitude eat you inside, because it's all about quality of life. Not the way you spend your money in life. Not the car you drive, not the type of airplane you fly, or the destination. It's all about the journey, it's about the ability to turn your eyes skyward and not have them ache or hurt. It's about the ability to look at yourself and tell yourself honestly that things are okay. If you can't do that, then you need to talk. I'm very serious about that. I've had friends who told me everything was okay, and then shot themselves an hour later. Don't do that. You have today, you have people who will talk to you, you aren't finished yet. Know that.
Know it.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my current job, but it is a j-o-b first, not f-u-n.
