The Road Goes Ever On and On

A while back, I wrote a little about what it felt like to run out of goals, to consider giving up on one of my dreams.  It's been over a year since I wrote those words and that time has now come.  For exactly 25% of this entire year, I was interviewing with a company that I'd wanted to work for for a long time.  I applied once three years ago but didn't make it.  I waited.  This year, another opportunity came my way and I applied again.  I didn't make it again.  I got very close but still didn't make it.  For all but one of the opportunities I've encountered since I entered this profession, that has been the case.  I just never seem to be quite good enough, not quite the right fit, without the right experience.

Fourteen years ago, when I first had the epiphany of what I wanted to be when I grew up, I was excited and naive.  Weren't we all?  I didn't know what I thought I knew.  But that's what inexperience is.  I was understanding enough to know that I had a lot of work ahead of me, work that I would have to do on my own because there was nobody to guide me, no trodden path to follow.  But I struck out on that trail into the woods with gusto empowered by the idea that if you follow your dreams with passion success will find you.  I found a few hopeful paths, met a few really interesting people along the way, but as the years went by, I never quite found success the way I had hoped.  I was successful in getting a job but not successful at accomplishing my goal, at making my dream come true.  So I adapted my goal.  I compromised hoping that my willingness to be flexible with my ideas would also be rewarded.  In a way it was but ultimately what I was doing became unsatisfying.

However, after the compromise the same thing keeps happening again and again.  Those rejection letters keep piling up around my feet.  I found that in changing and adapting, I had gone down some paths that didn't have a way back.  I got lost in those woods.  One of my favorite quotes of all time is attributed to W. C. Fields, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it."  That is exactly where I am today.  I have tried and tried again.  I've changed my approach.  I've tried to change my outlook.  Perhaps all of my attempts weren't fully-hearted but I forgive myself just a little for slacking now and again.  It's hard to stay motivated when you keep trying to climb that wall and never making it.

So here I am, giving up on the dream I've held for almost half of my life.  Maybe "giving up" is the wrong phrase to use.  Perhaps I should just call it downgrading.   After all, I still want to do what I love.  But doing what you love for a living is truly a privilege and one that I was obviously never meant to have.   Some people say they have no regrets but I certainly do.  I regret that I spent the past fourteen years working for something that I will never have.  It stings to say that.  A lot.  But ultimately I come back to W. C. Fields.  There comes a time when you should really just cash in your chips and move on and I think this is my time.  I don't know where I will go or what I will do but a wise hobbit once said, "The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began.  Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errand meet.  And whither then?  I cannot say."