We’ve all had this conversation in our life. The ‘if I had it to do over again’ one. Those of us in EMS seem to have this conversation a lot, partially because its an unintended field. What I mean by that is if you were to ask those people who you know in the EMS field very few of them will have truly planned to be an emt or paramedic. But I digress…
Virginia and I were having this discussion and I had mentioned going to medical school, which triggered that one. If I had buckled down beforehand I would have got everything done and would probably be entering med school this fall…but as they say, life is what happens when your busy making other plans.
So I was thinking back farther than that to when I first started college. My first plan was to go into psychology, eventually winding up with a PhD or PsyD in forensic psychology. I’d wanted to work for the FBI…a little cliché I know but still its where I felt I’d have been able to do something memorable.
So I had all these lofty aspirations for myself. Then had a series of downward spiral semesters, and ended up transferring back to Marshall and getting into an emt class and then paramedic school. A pretty far cry from either medical school or forensic psychology.
But the more I thought about it I had to ask myself, were my failures really failures? If I hadn’t left Marshall then I wouldn’t have met my brothers in my fraternity who helped bring me out of my shell and deal with people, I wouldn’t have moved to Huntington, or gotten into ems, or met the friends I have from the emergency services who served to further bring me out of my shell and turned me into what I am today…though the jury is still out on what that is haha.
In my 27 years I’ve been party to many different experiences and life lessons; how many of these would I still have had if I hadn’t failed in the past. I may have been doing my dream job so to speak, but what about the rest of my life. I don’t think I would have been as nearly an interesting person or had as many good stories to tell.
Do you think that your life would be any better than it is now if you hadn’t failed earlier in life?
August 24, 2009 at 12:36 am |
Frank this may just be some dumbass 19 year old kid talking, but none of these sound like failures. So stop calling them that. Failure is when you stop trying, when you finally just give everything up. You wouldnt be where you are now if you had failed, you would be sittin in an alley kicking back a 40 oz. with Speedy or Delmar. Just because you haven’t become what you thought you wanted to be in earlier life doesnt mean you failed, it just means you took another course of action in your life and have ended up where you need to be right now. Things may change, aspirations may change, but for right now youre where youre supposed to be, and quite frankly you’re still Frank god damn Pierson and none of us would have it any other way. = )
August 24, 2009 at 7:29 am |
Frank, speaking as a ‘mature’ woman, I almost have to laugh. You are 27 years old. You haven’t even BEGUN to know what you’re going to be when you grow up. Life happens, you take the turns and twists in the road, and follow it where it leads.
August 24, 2009 at 2:03 pm |
“Failures” are merely cleverly diguised learning tools. People have this tendency to live within their comfort zones, it’s cushy and safe. There is very little risk staying status quo. There are also very little opportunities for personal growth and development when you confine yourself within the box of the conventionally bastardized “norms”.
What teaches people, what helps us grow is pushing the limits, trying new things, wanting something so badly that you can taste it, reaching for it……and falling flat on your face. This is the best teacher. It shows us what we are made of. You can stay on the ground where your legs were kicked beneath you whining about how hard you tried and what a failure you are and get nothing accomlished.
Or, you can pick yourself up, piece by painful piece and Stand again. Each so called failure allows us to move in directions that perhaps we would have normally never considered. New paths and choices open up for us. The box opens and alternative theories become viable options. All of my so called failures, were painful, demeaning and hurt like hell at the time I was going through them. In retrospect, what I learned from each experience is so much more valuable than anything else ever could have been. It is what make you who you are. All of our failures and successes color the fabric of our personalities in rich hues that cannot be obatined in any other way. Its about learning yourself Frank and what you can do, a test of your mettle and courage. Not limiting yourself to what is expected of you, the constraints placed upon you by yourself or society.
There is an old saying that when one door closes another opens……..I believe it, and wonder if perhaps that second door was not always standing there open and beckoning to us….and we were too focused on our goal at the time to see it?
Sometimes door number 2 is the best choice.