How often do you stop and reassess what direction your life is going?
If you're like me, the answer is probably, "not nearly enough."
I never used to think about the future. Part of that is because, with depression and PTSD, I don’t believe I have a future. Part of it is just because I like to act first, and ask questions way, way, waayyyyyyyyyy later… after everything has fallen apart and I’m left holding the broken pieces and finally forced to admit:
“That didn’t go at all the way I thought it would.”
I don’t like to admit it, because I think it’s a negative character trait, but… I’m incredibly impulsive.
That’s probably why I’ve struggled with addictive behavior my whole life… and why I get into so many problems in my relationships, because I get overwhelmed and I just act out and it’s like I don’t care, in the moment, about whether I hurt the people around me or not…
I just need to get things out and that’s all I can think about until I do get it out there… and so many times, it comes out in the ugliest ways.
For the longest time, I thought that’s just how I am. Like that’s the way God made me and God obviously knows what He’s doing, so who am I to mess with perfection? (Kidding. Not kidding. I am pretty spectacular — but “perfect” might be asking a bit too much.)
My impulsiveness gets me into all kinds of trouble though. Not just with my friends, but in all aspects of my life.
I should have got in trouble on my ship, when I dressed up for a Halloween costume contest right after 9/11 as “Osama Glenn Laden.” But me and my chief thought the idea was hilarious! So of course, I had to act on it.
I wish I still had the picture of me in a thawb, turban (probably the wrong name for an Arab headdress but I am a redneck so IDK), paper beard glued onto my upper lip, flip flops, and a giant poster board tied around my neck that said, “Osama Glenn Laden,” so that everybody on board knew I was intentionally dressed up as the evil mastermind who just a month and a half ago had orchestrated the attack that toppled the Twin Towers.
It really was in bad, bad, horrible taste… and I probably should’ve gone to Captain’s Mast for daring to make light of something so tragic… and so recent…
But the crew loved it and they gave me third place (and like, $25 cash, if I recall correctly, so…)
Then there was also the time in 7th grade, when me and my friends were smoking cigarettes on school grounds, and the security guard came and told us we had to stop, so I said as loud as I could,
“Fine, we’ll go do our drugs somewhere else!”
Without it ever occurring to me, that some of my seventh-grade friends were holding drugs… and had the security guard decided to search us all… they would have a lot of explaining to do to their parents.
Or the time in Navy journalism school that I held a water pistol in front of a girl’s face and said, “Now will you go out with me?”
(She didn’t. And nobody but me seemed to think it was that funny.)
I could go on, but… I want you to still like me. At least this week. 😁
But there are times that my impulsiveness really helped me, too…
Like when my mom was choking, and I had to jump into action and perform the Heimlich maneuver (even though I’d only half paid attention in CPR training 25 years earlier… in the moment of truth I knew the right things to do and, thank God, Mom is still with us today because I knew what to do even when I didn’t know I did…)
Or when I decided to build a website with my 12-year-old nephew so that we’d have something we could bond over… and the site grew to over 1,000 members, some of who are still active in our forums ten years later…
Or when I went nuts in the American Writers and Artists Institute Facebook groups, and made friends with more than 300 people who then could not wait to meet me in person at the AWAI Copywriting Bootcamp in 2023, that pulled me completely out of the shell I’d been in for more than 15 years, and planted me firmly on the path I’m on now.
A path which, honestly, is saving my life (and which I know, without being told, is inspiring countless friends and family members to want to live their own best life, too, and which is why no matter how discouraged I’ve ever been, I refuse to give up or to go back to the life I was living before).
So the good thing about being impulsive, sometimes, is that it opens up an avenue that I would otherwise not explore. That, really, I wouldn’t even know was there… because if I wasn’t impulsive sometimes, I’d play it so safe I’d never be willing to take any chances at all…
And I would never truly grow.
It also seemed impulsive, when I left my parent’s house in Colorado in 2004, one year after separating from the Navy, to go start a new life in Portland, Oregon.
That was possibly the biggest, boldest move, I’ve ever made in my life. Maybe even bolder than moving to Lubbock… I’m not sure.
In 2004, I was turning 28, and I had spent an entire year after coming home from the war, hiding in my parent’s basement, trying to stop drinking (I did successfully quit, thank God), barely holding down temporary jobs that paid just enough to support my coffee and cigarette habit and make a car payment each month, slowly and quietly drifting away from all my high school friends who still lived in the neighborhood and who I wanted to reconnect with… but I couldn’t allow them to see what the Navy had done to me.
And I just knew that I had to get out. That if I stayed in Colorado, if I stayed with Mom and Dad, if I kept doing temp jobs that I didn’t care about and that didn’t challenge me or excite me or encourage me to grow…
I would never amount to anything and I would despise myself for the rest of my life — and probably, into eternity…
I had to get out of Colorado. So I moved to Portland, where I didn’t know anybody; I didn’t have a job lined up; I didn’t have any plans at all for how I wanted things to go.
I did go online and find a girl who was looking for a roommate and agreed to split the rent with me in exchange for letting me sleep on her couch. (That didn’t turn out the way I expected it would! And she was a nice enough girl but I didn’t live with her for very long once I realized her true intentions.)
But I stayed in Portland, and I tried to make things work, for as long as I could… but within like six months, I think, I was moving to Seattle, where I had family that I was already driving up to visit every chance I could get… and where I wound up living with my grandma at the end of her life, and going to massage school, and making friends and getting my first real job probably ever…
And learning all the lessons about life that I needed to learn to get me through the next twenty years, until today.
And as difficult as it was to watch my grandmother take her final breath, after living in her house for two years and taking care of her and taking a leave of absence from my job so that I could be her at-home on-call 24/7 nurse so that she could stay in her home until the very end…
Look… she was 82 when she died, and her body had just, worn out… and I knew I’d done everything right, to take care of her… but inside, it was still my fault she was gone, because if I could’ve known more or done more, maybe she would’ve made it a little longer… but I felt like I messed up and that when she died, it was because I didn’t do my job good enough… and that hurt me a lot.
When I drove home from the hospital the day she died, and I had to stay in her house by myself, and the rest of the family was gone, and it hit me that I was alone…
I’ve never hated this world so much as I did that first time I stepped outside for a cigarette and I looked up and down the neighborhood and not one person had stopped living their life… not even for one moment… not even just for one day, to honor the passing of the woman who’d taken me in and loved me and taught me the things that nobody else ever could…
It’s just not fair that the person closest to me in this life can die, and the world doesn’t even notice.
Nobody even cared.
There is no grief heavier than that.
Except, maybe, losing a child or a spouse — but I don’t have any of those to cling to, anyway.
But if I had to live my life different, and make all new choices but could keep one thing the same… I would give up the Navy and I would make sure that I still get to live with my grandma for those two years. That experience is the defining moment in my life.
Grandma made a bigger impact on me than going to war. (Which, no doubt, she’s telling everybody in Heaven who will listen! Love you, Grandma. I can’t wait to see you again.)
And if I hadn’t been so impulsive, to just hop in my car and move to Portland without stopping to even think about what I will do once I get there… I would have missed those years completely.
So in that case, being impulsive was definitely a positive.
Sometimes, my impulsiveness just leads to frustration, though.
Like when I thought I was gonna become a WordPress designer, so I taught myself how to code.
I did really well learning HTML and CSS, but trying to teach myself, I just could not wrap my head around PHP and JavaScript. I just couldn’t do it. So I got mad and I gave up, and told myself it’s too hard and I’m not smart enough and committed enough to make it work.
And I just gave up. After more than a year of study, and practice, I just quit. I told myself I can’t learn, and I don’t know enough to be any good with just the skills I have learned, so it’s pointless to keep trying.
And I carried that belief with me, from 2016 all the way through to 2024… never questioning, never doubting, never examining the underlying thoughts and feelings that made me feel that way…
Telling myself that I have PTSD, depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, a pornography addiction that just won’t leave me alone… no friends, no prospects, no future… no hope…
And I just sat there, in the stink, for so long I don’t even know if it still smells, or not. I only know it’s where I belong, and any effort to drag myself out of it always ends in failure… horrible, frightening, overwhelming, devastating, tragic failure.
Until 2025. And I don’t know why, but this seems to be the year that everything is maybe, possibly, if I try really hard and pray a whole lot and close one eye and just believe… maybe things are finally going to change. Maybe.
In January, I took the brave, bold step, to start investing 10% of my disability income each month into my own business. I’ve been investing in stocks and real estate ever since I started drawing disability… but this year I finally accepted that I don’t have the slightest clue what I’m doing in the stock market and I’d be better served to put that money into my own education.
(Some of) my business mentors tell me this is a dumb idea… because I’m investing in an idea that isn’t bringing any money in yet.
They probably don’t want to know what I say about them, though…
(Just kidding! If you’re reading this, I do appreciate you — I just know that you’re wrong.)
Because even though I’m “losing money” on my veterans support group, today… I have faith that some day, it’s going to bring in a fortune… whether directly, through the app, or through the business connections I’ll make within the group itself.
One day, this venture that I jumped into totally blind and said, “Yeah let’s make it happen,” is going to come through… because I’m not going to give up, this time around, until I get exactly the group that I want, that I’m imagining in my head, that I know the veteran community at large is in dire need of, especially if the VA does get drastically reduced in size and scope in the next four years.
Although… even if it does get smaller, most veterans won’t know; we’ll still get ignored, blocked, and put on wait lists that aren’t supposed to exist. VA staff can’t even help themselves at this point… the negligence and abuse is baked into the system… but that’s for another letter.
I don’t know how my veterans support group is ever going to make me any money…
Because I’m not building the group to make money.
I’m building it to help other veterans — and to help myself.
I’m building it so that when a homeless or disabled or suicidal — or just plain lonely — veteran finds my group… automatically they’ll know they’ve found a community that cares about them.
And honestly, I don’t even know how I’m going to make that happen. But I know I’m the only person who can.
I know that if I don’t build the community I have in mind, nobody else is going to do it for me. And I need to know that my brothers and sisters in arms are being looked after. That they’re not forgotten. That they’re not alone.
I spent so many years thinking, believing, I was alone… I know how that can mess with a person’s head… I don’t ever want any veteran to have to endure that for as long as I did.
So, yeah, I’m spending my own money to build something that may or may not ever pay off, financially. But for all the other ways it’ll make an impact, it’s worth the effort.
Still… it is impulsive to just blindly dive right into it like this.
Then again, I’ve been talking about it for a year and a half. Telling people I’m going to do it. Wanting to impress my friends, and especially, the girl I like. Letting people tell me what a great idea it is, and how badly it’s needed, and what a hero I’ll be.
And now it’s time to actually do it, or fail trying. And I already want to die, anyway. So before I go, I might as well try to do something big, and bold, and meaningful.
But I started this letter talking about taking time to step back and reassess the direction of my life… and now I’m gonna bring it back around, and show you what all this impulsivity has to do with it all.
About a year ago, I started taking off the first week of each new quarter. I refused to do any work, or have any Zoom meetings or brainstorming sessions, or anything, and just… unwind. Just spend a whole week doing anything but work.
I can go shopping; I can sleep all day every day; binge Netflix; play a video game; read a book; talk to family and friends; make banana bread twelve times in four days trying to find the perfect nutmeg to cinnamon to cardamom ratio… anything… as long as it’s not work related.
In the past (like when I thought I was gonna be a web designer), I never took breaks. I just kept going until I got frustrated, overwhelmed, and burned out.
I obsessed over the problems I got stuck on, and couldn’t solve.
I convinced myself that because there was one or two things I just couldn’t figure out, that meant I was obviously on the wrong path and I need to just give up, and move onto something else.
But now… when I take a week off once every three months… and I don’t think about whatever I’m working on… and I don’t obsess over the parts I can’t figure out…
And I just let my mind relax and let go of all the hard parts and just allow all my thoughts to find their own way back into the right boxes in my mind…
I’m able to look back at the last three months, and see all the good I accomplished, and all the progress I’ve made, and all the things I’m getting right about it all! And I’m able to let go of the things that are frustrating me, and keeping me stuck, and holding me back.
It’s like a hard reset for my mental health.
It lets me get back to square one — but a new, improved square one, three months better than it was the last time around (three months ago). It lets me appreciate all the things I’ve accomplished, and recognize where there’s room for improvement, and decide on where I want to focus my efforts for the next three months.
And I have a rough idea of a five-year plan… and I have one-year goals… and I have six-month goals… and I have 90-day goals…
And every quarter, I get to reflect on what’s just happened, and decide if I’m going in the right direction or if I need to make drastic changes in order to get where I want to go…
I have a whole week each quarter to make space for inspiration, and imagination, and for setting impossible goals that I can aim for and sprint for, and readjust every three months, and let go of what’s not moving me forward and double down on what is helping and make room for new ideas and feedback from the people I’m paying to help me make this all happen.
Oh, yeah, that’s the other big thing I did in January!
I hired a social media strategist to help me build awareness and engagement and help bring people to my support group. And in April, I’m hiring a second consultant. It’s embarrassing how little I’m able to pay them both right now… but it’s a testament to my idea, and their belief in me and my vision, that they want to help me…
And God willing when this group does start to bring in an income, I’ll be able to pay them both what they’re worth… but right now I’m just grateful for all the help I’m receiving. It shows me that I am on the right path, and that this is something worth pursuing. And it keeps me going, in those times when I just want to quit.
But by far the best thing I’m doing for my veterans group… for my business… for myself and my mental health… is to take regular, planned breaks, where I can just let the dust settle and the storm quiet, and I can see what’s working and what needs to change… and plot a new course and make any necessary adjustments.
If I wasn’t doing that, I know I’d be burned out right now. And I’d probably be walking away from the group, and the people that have already joined it, and the people that are committed to helping me make it happen…
And that would be a tragedy.
Instead, I’m going against the grain, and I’m taking the time I need to get myself right again, and to keep going forward with this big, impossible dream, that I’m probably going to spend the rest of my life working on, building, growing, improving, evolving…
So that me and my fellow veterans will never again feel like we have to walk through this world alone, cut off from the love, help, and support that we need, in order to be the heroes that our friends and families are convinced that we are… and that we just sometimes forget, because the mantle we carry is so heavy, sometimes it just beats us down.
And when I come back on April 8th, I know I’m gonna have a plan for Q2 and it’s gonna be amazing and inspiring and maybe just a little bit intimidating, ridiculous, and impossible — but I’m gonna keep at it until I figure it out.
Because now I know, I can be impulsive, and I can let that carry me a little way… and then I can step back and take a breather, and analyze where I’m at, and plan my next steps. And I don’t have to figure it out all at once, but if I take regular breaks to reassess where I’m going… sooner or later, I have to get what exactly what I’m hoping for.
There simply is no alternative.
What do you do to reassess the direction of your life? And do you feel like you do it often enough? Let me know in the comments, or if you prefer, hit reply to this and send me an email. I read every email and every comment… and I really, really want to know.