One of the Coldest and Darkest Days of My Life

She wouldn’t tell me, but I was a disgrace in her eyes. I thought of myself as a complete failure. This woman had looked up to me and I had let her down.

Just a little over two and a half years ago in the first few months of the cold winter of 2014 I was pulling into the parking lot of a completely dark parking lot for a company that I couldn’t stand working for.

Treading through that snow on that freezing morning, I had just returned an ex-girlfriend back to her house after she had spent the night and now I had to face my life as a failure.

In this place my life was completely a wreck and it wasn’t how I wanted it to be at all. Years before I had told her all about my dreams, goals, and ambitions. But now I had to be honest with her and tell her that I was living none of them. Telling her that I was working at this call center for an embarrassing hourly rate was a new low.

Not only that, my 20-year-old Honda Civic was on the midst of a break down. I was over $10,000 in debt and I probably had just a few hundred dollars in my bank account. I lived in a small bedroom that housed five other men. This was nothing like the life I had imagined a few years earlier.

How did I get here? I knew the Secret. I had watched the movie and even applied it to my life, sorta. I knew all this other personal development stuff. I should never have been in this place, but I was.

I failed at business and couldn’t seem to figure the career thing out. I didn’t have a clear enough direction. I lost who I really was and in the process I took from others and it led me down a path that I knew wouldn’t be sustainable.

Having this dark moment in my life brought me to an even clearer reflection to where I was at and where I was going. Thinking of this girl I had just dropped off 30 minutes earlier, it was embarrassing, but necessary because I knew I was on the right track again.

These feelings didn’t matter because I was in a place of clarity in life. 

My one vision was to pull my life back together and move out of Colorado Springs to Denver. I’m not sure why this was the right vision for me, but it was and this driving goal motivated me. I knew on this morning that I would spend 9 hours working at this job that I hated and then I would leave to go to my other job where I would deliver Chinese food for another 4 hours.

Beyond the midst of my humiliation I was motivated and I knew that I was going to make it happen.

This vision drove me. It allowed me to put my head down and focus on the goal that was ahead of me. Having this shame only gave me more motivation to get out of this situation. I was resolute.

With no idea how I was going to get out of this mess that I was in, I persevered. Working 13+ hour days all I did was focus on the task at hand and what I learned was that with a committed drive to a definite goal there was little that could be done to stop a person in motion towards their goals.

Eventually I got through that disaster that I called life at that present time, but I am profoundly thankful to have gone through that dark day. It wasn’t about that girl, but rather she helped me see an even clearer reflection of myself.

I discovered what I had become in her eyes, but more importantly what I had become in my own eyes. This day still drives me never to quit, never to give up because there is always someone who believes in you. There is always someone that knows you are capable of something more. For me, she knew that I had the potential of doing more and this only allowed me to see further my own greatness within me.

We all have our own path in life and I am not saying that anyone else is wrong in what they are doing now. They are only taking a misstep when they know that they are going the wrong direction and when they know they want to be somewhere else. For me it wouldn’t have been so bad being in the place that I was, but I knew that indirectly my actions and my non-decision had led me to this place where I didn’t want to be. For me I knew that I had caused this distress all on my own.

What we have to do is consciously look at what we are doing in our lives and determine if those things are worthwhile and will lead us to our goals. Will these actions take me where I want to go and more towards who I want to become?

Having this dark and cold day as the snow came down was necessary for me. Getting out of my car after thinking about all those things I walked towards the office building. Opening the door to a place I didn’t necessarily want to be, I saw a shade of sunlight come over the mountains in the morning. A smile came through on my face. I hadn’t chose to be here before, but now this was my own path to choose and this was just part of the journey.