Nihilist Cowboy

A Sick Man, A Spiteful Man, An Unattractive Man
2021-01-15 21:01:00 (UTC)

Reflection exercise 3: Excuses and freedom

What excuses have I used in life to hold me back?

If we follow the existentialist Sartre's principle of "absolute freedom" believing that we are born a blank slate, and that we are fully responsible for our actions. This premise to me means that we have no excuses for actions that we take in life. What excuses have I made about my life and circumstances?

The social environment of my childhood is the single biggest excuse that I have used in my life to justify my place in society. I grew up in a poor, single mother household in a poverty stricken town in the South. While I fiercely resented being called "redneck" and "white trash," I never did anything to challenge these assumptions. I can remember one time in particular approximately 5 years ago when I was about to start my last semester in undergrad.

During the summer of 2015, I was working for a local janitorial company making 7.75 an hour (eww). Our biggest assignment of the week was cleaning cabins at this summer camp owned by a Dallas megachurch 15 minutes down the road from my house in the next town over. The weekly camp ended Saturday morning and the next group arrived that evening so we went in the cabins to disinfect and get the sand out. This was exactly what you would expect when thinking of what some rich DFW folks envisioned when they were going to go "camping." There were 10 cabins surrounding a lake. The cabins were roughly 5 years old and ranged from 3000 to 5000 square feet. The larger cabins were 2 stories tall and had 2 separate wings of rooms with approximately 12 bunk beds. Each room had a bathroom with 3 pots and 3 shower stalls. Lets just say this camp was so expensive that none of us workers could ever afford to attend.

One of these Saturday afternoons I was busy sweeping trash under beds in a cabin when I overheard a conversation between 2 camp counselors who were roughly the same age as me. One guy was telling the other about how next week he would be starting a summer internship at a hedge fund where is father worked before he was completed his business degree from SMU that fall. I was about to complete my business degree at a small public university the same semester in roughly 6 months from then. There was no internship for me, only working minimum wage to keep gas in the truck. See, when you come from a place like where I am from you do not have that many connections. The closest connection I had in high finance was a few hundred dollars in the bank and that was it.

The rest of the day I was stewing mad. I was wearing an ill fitting company tshirt, jeans that were not fitting because Zach was eating like shit and not exercising during this time, and I pulled my dirty and very out of style Nebraska Huskers fitted cap over my head out of shame. My clothes stunk of trash that splashed on me after it sat in the hot Texas sun for the past week.

6 months later I am sure the camp counselor got a job at the hedge fund, I graduated that December and I did not go anywhere, a year after that event I was still working for that company now making about 8 an hour. After graduation, I applied to every single entry level business job that I could find but to no avail. I was in the typical millennial paradox of "Cant get the job without experience but cant get experience without a job." My resume consisted of basic unskilled labor and that was it. In fact I rode "near minimum wage" until what 4 months ago? After a few months of searching after graduation I essentially said fuck it and gave up. I sunk in depression and yet again went into another period in life where I just did not feel like living, I was not suicidal but could really care less one way or the other.

What excuses did I make? What could I have done differently?

Well I absolutely could not change the circumstances that I was born in, but I could change how I reacted to the cards that were dealt to me. That camp counselor had the easy path in life, I saw the hard path that was in front of me and I sat there on the ground and pouted and bitched for years that life was so unfair because I had the more difficult path. I could never afford going to the same school that he went to, but I could have actually tried in high school and gotten a scholarship. In 2015, I probably would not have been able to get a job at a Dallas hedge fund, but I could have self taught myself skills that could have gotten me something right? I could have bought business books from the used bookstore or even gone to the local library. I could have shaved, gotten a haircut, and wore clothes that actually fit. I could have watched Youtube videos and read articles, took online classes on top of the college classes I was already taking to give me some sort of marketable skill. After graduation, I could have kept applying months and months out instead of giving up and assuming I was going to be poor the rest of my life. Luckily in 2018, I finally started graduate school which led me to finally getting out of poverty wages.

Instead what did I do? I rolled around in the mud of my resentment, I believed that nothing would ever be better, I believed that the "normal adult life" was all but out of reach for me. Although, I did spend time in AA working on my alcohol addiction, I did not due anything to further my career other than the bare minimum in college. I worked, got home and either played Xbox 360, watched Youtube videos, slept til 2pm on my off days and watched a ton of porn nightly. There was no self care in my life. My credit cards were maxed out; not from frivolous things but from the grocery store and eating fast food.

What other excuses am I using today that are holding me back? Well I am about to be 30, still living at home but no longer "broke as shit" Hopefully will be able to buy a house soon. I have nobody to support, no wife, no kids, no excuses to get to where I need to be. Have I ever taken responsibility?




Ad: