Faith and the Art of Winging It

It seems like most of my life I have been surrounded by people who were going places and doing great things. My father impressed upon me at a young age that one must always have goals and be relentless in pursuing them. He taught this by example more than anything and I spent much of my life struggling to live up to that standard and to achieve, achieve, achieve. My father taught me to be methodical; always having a plan and definite steps to take to reach my goals. Going to engineering school was more of the same. I learned to organize these things even more with project deliverables, Gantt charts breaking projects into phases and tasks with specific timetables and carefully ordered execution, bills of materials, and on and on and on. My life had about as much spontaneity and energy as a line of computer code. I was efficient, I achieved a lot. I have the resume to show it (and I have to leave half of it out because it won't fit on one page*).

When I reached the end of all of the preparation, completing both of my degrees with honors, earning awards and recognition for my projects and papers, I realized I had made several major mistakes. For all of my planning and hard work, I missed what was probably the most important step. I had not taken the time to find out what I wanted. I had done all of that work with no real idea of what my goal was and I had plowed through all of those years, filling them to the brim with tasks and work, that I found myself at the end with no idea of where I was or where to go next. My second mistake was that I had allowed myself to fall prey to the idea that all I had to do to get the job of my dreams, was to work hard and do my best in College etc. I did not take into account factors like the economy crashing, the possibility that I would not like traditional engineering jobs, or the simple fact that life isn't fair and it is very often a matter of who you know and not what you know or have done that will get you a job.

To give myself some credit, I realized these things a few years ago, maybe sooner, but had no idea what to do with them as I was already around 4 years into my degree program. The idea of taking time off to reassess things and the possibility of realizing that I might want to abandon my path and waste the time and money spent was too much. And all of it conflicted with the values I'd grown up working to achieve. When I finished my first degree I signed on for the second largely because I had nowhere to go, no job, no destination, and I was stalling for time to figure things out. I had started spending time with a a different group of people, mostly climbers and friends outside of the Engineering lifestyle. These were people who had lived and thought about things far differently than my family. They essentially worked to live as opposed to living to work. They were people I loved and respected, but they didn't fit into the narrow minded ideal of 'success' that I had been indoctrinated into. In retrospect I think that I will look back years from now and know that these people saved my life by planting the idea that I had other options.

I spent my last year of college working at a gear shop, spending all of my time at the local climbing gym, joining my friends in all sorts of outdoor adventure sports, and hanging out and working with my best friend helping with every sort of project you could imagine from planting agarden to refinishing a log cabin, cutting down trees, and even a bit of motorcycle maintenance. I found myself surrounded by people who were doing things and going places and doing it in a way that I had been told was irresponsible. In my family one didn't take a semester off to travel or take a break between degrees. You certainly didn't do things like booking a flight to Costa Rica, leaving everything behind, without a job or a plan. Yet here I am.

When I made the decision to leave, all I really knew was that I had no idea what I was in for. A good friend of mine has told me often that when you put things out to the world, it has a way of bringing things back to you. I tried that a bit before I left and found that it might be true. Costa Rica to that was a bit like dipping your toe in the river to check the temperature and then throwing yourself off the 50 foot waterfall downstream. My friend is always right though. Things have worked out. Since I have been here I was 'rescued' from the red-light district of San Jose and found myself on an incredible tour of the rural areas of CR where I got to see people and things no tourist would have ever gotten to experience. I stumbled upon one of the most incredible and little known surfing Meccas in CR chasing after a lead the same friend had drummed up for me before I left the state. At the hostel i stayed at the first week I met JP who became one of my best friends here and my roommate and surf buddy. A friend of a friend introduced me to Luis who I now rent a room from, and who constantly teaches me things about CR and surfing, and who shows up at the oddest times with exactly what I needed (a bike, a possible job). I got a job as a surf instructor through a friend, found a surf board shaper who is now asking me to work at his shop and might teach me how to shape. I got nominated for a modeling contest and found a photographer here through my surfing contacts. I couldn't plan any of this if I tried.



I haven't made a plan in months and yet here I am. I have an incredible job where I get to work with interesting people, I get to be outside, I get paid to surf! It is the most rewarding thing I have done in a long time and it's supporting me being out here. (Well mostly, I do dip into the savings now and then, but that's what they are for right?) I have a place to stay with good friends. I have opportunities to pursue. And above all I am having fun every day. The anxiety I lived with day in and day out is mostly gone. My life feels not only manageable, but enjoyable. And it is all completely out of my control; unplanned, unforced, unpredictable. I love that. I love the spontaneity and the fact that I can have faith that things will work out. I've never had that before. At the risk of overusing my surfing metaphors, I feel like I did when I realized that I couldn't plan taking a wave. I had to ride what I was given and react. I can't fight the ocean and win anymore than I can fight life and change it. Years ago that would have been terrifying for me; realizing I wasn't in control. Now it's a relief. There's a sense of freedom in it and a excitement and anticipation of taking on the challenge of taking what comes to me and riding it and seeing where I end up.

Zooming Out: Seeing My Relationships at a Distance

The past month has been eventful in a somewhat different way. It hasn't felt dramatic, there has been plenty of emotion, but little anxiety. There are things that need to be done. I hesitate to say fixed. I haven't screwed things up; they're just still in progress. I have a new job as a surf instructor. It doesn't quite pay my bills, but I'm not draining my savings every day I'm here now and I'm getting paid to surf and share something I love. I'm getting used to the pace of life here, although I still get crazy bored during the midday lull. I'm surfing a lot and getting better at it, but I've discovered I'd be better suited for a different board and I haven't been able to justify buying another. It's too hot to run here most days. I go occasionally and spend the next day recovering from the dehydration and sun exposure, but I don't trip out over not running regularly as often.

Things aren't perfect, but the problems are mostly trivial day to day things. Yes, I occasionally wonder where I will be in 6 months. I am well aware of the lack of income I am generating and the limitations that creates. I still check the sports industry job postings every week and feel a bit of guilt or fear or whatever that feelings of 'holy-shit-I-better-do-something-with-my-life-soon' and 'am-I-really-wasting-8-years-of-kicking-my-own-ass-to-get-those-degrees?' would be classified as. I think it's called lingering neuroses from growing up in a narrow minded world view. Those things don't feel any better when they are in focus, but they aren't consuming me. There is less panic, maybe even less judgement, and I think most significantly I am able to move on and to not dwell on the things that cannot be fixed this moment. I've given up planning. I have had enough time to look back on how effective the incessant planning thing has been working for me. It was rather conclusive that it wasn't. My best decisions were always made intuitively in the moment and the ones that hurt me the most were the most premeditated.

The best and hardest part of being here is the perspective I've gotten surrounding some of the key relationships in my life. Distance and time have shown me some things I was doing a very good job of forcibly not seeing and some things I simply couldn't see because I was too entangled in them. Some of the things are painful. I realized how little of a relationship I have left with my father. I'm halfway across the world and I haven't had any contact with him and it feels no different than it has in years. I don't miss him, which sounds terrible. I just don't see him at the climbing gym every weekend to make fun of his climbing technique and make attempts on reassuring him that I'm a responsible adult. It's odd to step back and see that this man who I've spent so much of my life trying to meet his expectations and make him proud has in reality become such a marginalized figure in my life. The idea of him, or rather my idea of his expectations are what have been looming over me for so long. It's something I created.

I've also realized how hard my mother tries to keep the family functioning and how much anxiety and stress she creates for herself in the process. I know I took a lot of that on during high school. Not surprisingly it wasn't the best time of my life. I've actually taken on a lot of my Mom's personality. For instance she goes out of her way to help people and to do things to make others feel special. I admire that and tend to do it as well, but like her I've done it to the point that I feel used or jaded, or simply worn out. Seeing her from afar now as she struggles with my brothers recent legal problems, my father's retirement, his mother's estate, her sister's medical issues....you get my point... I suddenly understand why she sometimes seems to get overwhelmed or cranky at odd times. It's a valuable reminder for me.

Then there is my brother. I love my brother a lot. I don't see him much anymore, but when you grow up moving a lot like we did in a small family, there's no one who can understand your life experience better than a sibling. My brother and I have very little in common on the surface. Our personalities seem to contrast. In private though we're not all that different. We struggle with many of the same things, just with different presentations. My brother left college to go into union trade work, I buried myself in getting multiple degrees. He's currently dealing with some legal issues surrounding alcohol abuse, I've been in and out of rehab for my issues for over 14 years now. We're both struggling to find our places in the world we were raised in, or maybe more accurately the interpretation of the world we were raised to see. I used to envy my brother for bucking the preplanned path through college and doing his own thing. I've realized recently that it was just another version of not knowing what to do. True to form, when faced with uncertainty my default was to do what was expected, his was to dig in his heels and do the opposite. When I found out about my brother's legal problems while I was here I realized something else about our relationship. I recognized that I can't save him or help him. I want to and I think I used to try; covering for him with our parents, intervening when they fought, giving him pep talks. It seems idiotic now. If I did anything it was probably more harm than good. I didn't think of it as trying to save him at the time. I don't think I'm that egotistical. I just cared about him and knew he was struggling. maybe I focused on him because it was easier then focusing on me. Regardless, I know now that I can't help him and I have to let go of the impulse to get involved or upset when he faces the consequences of his struggles. Just like I have to face mine. Sometimes things just suck like that and I'm always going to worry about him a bit. I'm just grateful I'm not our parents. They can't help him either, but I can understand why it's harder for them to let go of the need to try than it is for me.

I've also realized how important certain friends have become in my life and how little it matters what the label placed on the relationship is or whether people think I'm bat-shit crazy when they ask me to explain it and I attempt to. I don't need to know where it's going or what our friendship will look like a year from now or 10 years. Of course I wonder. I hope that the life changes that I'm facing won't put distance between us. Worrying about it does me no good. I don't even have options to debate right now. I'm just lucky I have someone keeping me company as I muddle my way though this. It comes at the cost of some loneliness and a lot of uncertainty, but its a small price to pay.

I'm sure some of these things are obvious to onlookers or sound cliche or generic. (I am after all leaving out specifics). I guess that's the nature of growing up and going through life. I'm learning things a lot of people already know, experiencing things they've been through, but if they'd told me, I still wouldn't have really gotten it. I've got a lot to learn still, but luckily I've also got time and I finally feel like I can take it.