Wishing

I wish I could have learned so many of the lessons I have learned without screwing them up. I really do.

I've experienced some pretty serious and, at times, harsh consequences for learning I've done and mistakes as a part of that learning.

Losing Brandi was the most serious consequence I probably experienced. Though my life has been pretty harsh, at times, up to this point, as well. Financial, job, school and other consequences have sucked in a major way. And sadly, so many of the artificially imposed consequences have done no good, at all, and have often been counterproductive, making things worse for everyone.

I wish I could have avoided all of those consequences. Especially losing Brandi, which really was the most heartbreaking consequence I've experienced for mistakes in my life - largely, fighting so much with someone who was my best friend and who it made no sense to fight with, at all, really.

And yet all of the learning that went with all of those consequences was not, generally, available to me without experiencing all of those consequences (except for the artificially imposed ones, which were, as I said, largely useless and/or counterproductive and made things worse).

The consequences sucked.

But the learning was more important.

And I'm glad I risked the consequences for the learning that went with them.

I hate listening to Every Time We Say Goodbye - Annie Lennox, Sarah Vaughn, or whomever - and thinking, "How in the fuck did I push away someone I loved so much?" It fuckin' sucks.
I hate listening to Darryl Worley's I Miss My Friend, Diamond Rio's Beautiful Mess, or Rascal Flatts' These Days and thinking, "I remember when I learned to love country music. When I lost Brandi."

I hate seeing people give me the eye when they know what a fuck up I was at KU or what an organizational oaf I was at Eisenhower or whenever they know I've been rejected or fired or expelled or convicted or proclaimed an official fuck-up by someone somewhere and thinking, "What a fuckin' loser," or "There is no fuckin' way I want to end up like you."

But as much as I hate all of those things...

I love and I'm proud of the fact that I've been and remain willing to risk the fucking up to learn the lessons for real and not in some abstraction or rule or proclaimed wisdom or someone else's idea of how I should live my life.

I'm proud of the fact that I put the learning ahead of the wishing.

I have a feeling that's going to pay off in my life. But even if it didn't, I'd be proud that I put the learning first.

I'd rather live with my heart and my mind open and experience all of the love and the disappointment and more genuine commitment that comes with that than I would live my heart full of fear and disappointment and absent more genuine commitment and without chasing the life that I know, deep down in my heart, that I want.

I'll take that, in a heartbeat, over a life without failure or mistakes or disappointment.

And, most important, that's a life that's my own. I own it. Good and bad. And the lessons I learn from it go toward making my life and the lives of people around me and those I love and hopefully as many people as possible better as a consequence of all of that learning.

And I'll take that consequence over any wishing anyday.

Love,
Ben