There’s a painting crew that is frosting the windows of our office. Softens the sunlight and obscures the outside. There’s this one wall of windows that I can see clearly from my desk. Outside those windows is a narrow, concrete walkway. Not much to see and no real reason to go out there. So while I know that there’s nothing there, any visitors to the office will see those windows and wonder, “What’s out there, by chance?” It’s interesting. It’s the same as when you put vaseline on a camera lens to give it a flashback look. Things are in front of you. Just slightly out of focus and soft.

I say everything that’s on my mind. My emotions are on my sleeve. I’ve the worst poker face I know. Everything is exactly as it is. If anything changes, I may be caught off guard a few moments, but then I adapt. That’s what I do. One of my best qualities. This can lead to a very lonely life. I can understand the gravity of events and relationships. But I still adapt.

I lived in the same home all 22 years of my life before moving west to California. I never spent more than a week away from home at a time. Then I moved. And in the past 2 and a half years, I had at least a dozen jobs and 6 apartments. There was no room to hold onto anything. I have let places and people go from my life all in the name of me. And when I say ‘me’, I speak of the ‘me’ that is the dreams I have for my life. It is said that chasing your dreams can cost you everything. They do not lie.

While on the brink of losing, yet another person in my life, and a person most dear, I sit and I stare at those windows and debate whether they are the clear windows covered in frost-like paint. Or now they are something new, entirely. Either way, it means things will be different; they will have changed. And they will never be the same again.

I feel that, as humans, we can sometimes be terrible at doing the things we mean to do or do the things we say we will do. If somebody says, “why am I never doing the things I want to do?” The appropriate response is that, “You are always doing the thing you want to do because you choose to do it.”

Sometimes you need to find the thing to keep you properly motivated. Sometimes you just cannot allow yourself to slow down or stop. Maybe it’s just part of my character, but the worst action you could probably take is no action. I recognized this in myself most recently. I’ve got the job, apartment, car, girl, and routine. I had myself on cruise control. The human condition is the perfect anchor for the human spirit.

I need to keep moving forward or I won’t continue to be successful. Some folks might think I’m being too hard on myself, but I wanted to be where I am now, two years ago. Actually, even further. I’m recommitting myself to my purpose and goal. This is not a time to sit on the bench. This is not a time to be content. This is game time. This is life. Get it.

When you acquire something in your life, you tend to recognize its value. Whether it’s a car, a job, or even a pair of shoes, there’s certain properties and benefits to the thing. Yet even if you don’t realize that true value, or even all the components of that value, you will most certainly know it once you no longer have it. Once I left my family’s home, it took me some time and some stupid moments to truly understand what my family meant to me. I didn’t really value my parents and siblings the way I do now, the way I should have. I used to love playing with my siblings when I was very young. As they grew older, they wanted to spend time with their friends and wouldn’t let me join. Makes sense. It’s what older siblings do. My problem was the fact that I didn’t have many other friends. So when they went off with friends and, eventually, off to college, I just let them alone. By that point, I was in high school and miracle of miracles, I made friends.

For the duration of high school and college (of which, I lived at home), my friends and colleagues were my first priority and family was second. Since all my siblings had moved out and my folks were doing their own “dating thing” again, it was just natural, obvious, that I do my own thing. In fact, I thought that my brothers and sister didn’t even like me. This is a thought I’m still trying to unthink.

After arriving in this place, I tended to treat those around me poorly because, well, you hurt the people closest to you since they won’t leave you. For the six months prior to moving from Chicago to Los Angeles, my mindset was “get the hell out of Dodge.” I don’t know if you have had those arguments with your family where you say a great many, horrible things. The yelling matches with no point other than to be the loudest and beat the other person mentally senseless. The night before I moved, I had a wonderful blow up with my siblings. Six months later, the last day of my first visit back, my mother and I yelled at each other for a while. It ended in her telling me to “just go back to Los Angeles!”

I got on the plane that night finally recognizing something about myself that I had never consciously known before. It explained why I treated people so bad, yelled at them, and did what I needed to get what I want. Simply put, as a person, I didn’t like myself. And that made me angry.

After a handful more trips home, talks with family/close friends, and consistent time talking to God, I truly began to become happy with me. I learned to like myself. It’s a skill, I discovered. And like any skill, or muscle, it needs to be exercised. I have days better than others. In the end, I recognize that I have the ability to like myself and to know that people actual do like me. I digress.

It took this entire storyline and a handful of bumps along the way to learn the value my family is. And I’m glad I learned it before too long. They seem to think I’m pretty cool. And I think they’re a stellar bunch, as well.

Friends fade. Blood remains.

I think a valid question to ask God is, “How do people get away with such bullshit?” I’m talking about how people can say they are a certain type of person, then they show you their true, dirty self over the span of some time. Since I make people feel comfortable, they tend to show these darker sides more quickly. Or maybe they just feel that I’m an easy person to take advantage of. I suppose that comes from my Chicago mentality. Which consists of being a hard worker and someone who honors their word. When a task is presented to us, we do the necessary job. Where this breaks down is when someone says WE have this task to do. And I say, “Let’s do it.” When they said “we” they meant me. Despite a person and me being equals, they still treat me as a subordinate. Then there’s those who say they’ll do something, but pass the buck.

I suppose the only thing I can say is I don’t understand. I don’t understand how people so inept can make it this far; to a place where I had to fight to get here. Most every job I’ve had, I’m brought on because I’m a fixer. They can give me responsibility and I will take care of it; they can trust me.

Why would anyone want to hire somebody just because they have a palatable personality? I thought hiring somebody who knew their job and was reliable was the way it worked. But maybe I’m expecting too much. Maybe it helps to have one person do the work and the other is controllable and under the bosses thumb. If I need to pull a Caan and Abel, I’m not against it.

Is this how Batman does it, right? He does the dirty work, never gets thanked, gives himself for the betterment of people who don’t deserve it, but need it. All this to say, I will keep on doing as I do because it’s who I am. And what I do will hopefully be recognized some day. What I do defines me.

Holy shit.

I’m Batman.

I am standing on a razor’s edge. Other than “Razor’s Edge” being a great film, in my case, it’s not so kosher. I’m at this place, for the 852nd time, where everything is coming to a head. In both business and personal, there are a litany of possibilities, of scenarios, that could happen and that could be picked. In some cases, things are just going to happen beyond my control. But many of the options I have give me choices of how I react to them and how I carry on from them.

Now I know that what I have just said is a no-brainer. That is life. It’s what happens to you and how you react to it. But what I’m looking at are things, options, that could drastically change my life. These are choices that will occupy large portions of who I am and how I spend my days. I refer to the message of Donald Miller’s book “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”. Live a better story.

This is the best thing I’ve heard since hearing the message of Jesus. This tells a person, no matter what you’re dealt or what your situation is in life, the only thing you can do is to live a better story. Because of how true this is and how much I remind myself of this, this will in fact become my first tattoo.

Of all the possibilities presented to me, every single one has positives and wonderful potential. But they all each have cons and not-so-enjoyable consequences with them. Anything is fair game. Which doesn’t help me because I’m such an average guy. Not an “average guy” as in “you couldn’t pick me out of a lineup.” But average in the sense that I’m middle of the road. I don’t have anything I’m terribly great at and nothing I’ve encountered so far that I haven’t been able to do decent at. In most every character trait and skill, I fall on both sides: funny, serious; smart, dumb; wise, ignorant; etc.

And not only am I in a place where so many possibilities of varying degrees and directions is available, but I also am not confident in who I am, myself. I am a confident coward. I’m a salesman. My presentation is a facade over what is actually going on inside. I depend on the external so much to support my internal, that I become this adaptable, changeable person. It’s said the true test of a person’s character is who they are when no one is looking. Well I don’t even know who I am when no one is looking.

The only difference between adolescence and the present is that the stakes have been raised. Every decision I make means more now. And I’m worried that one of these days, I’m not going to do the right thing, make the right choice, and it’s going to mean something monumental that I’m never going to be able to change. And I’m scared that it’s going hurt the people around me and I’m going to be alone.

If this is not just me and this is everybody, then God help us. Realizing the massive potential wreckage a single life can cause is jarring. And if people are all like this and knowing that life doesn’t come with a detailed manual, we should all be scared for ourselves. Stumbling through life, making it up as we go along.

The blind.