Gravel...
All those cool words to emphasize my skills and abilities seem out of place. "Implemented and administered organizational framework developing cross-sector relations..." How about I just say I built a business from the ground up while busting my ass throughout the entire process. I learned from trial and error and drove myself to exhaustion because I worked so damn hard. I did everything from hiring and firing employees to filing taxes to scrubbing the grease out of the kitchen hood. I'm damn good at what I do and though I don't have formal education, with a little time and life learned problem solving skills, I can run circles around others... Until I realize I'm doing it for the wrong reasons. My business didn't fail. It's still open actually. What failed is the fire that was ignited in my soul by irrational motivations.
I don't want to build relationships with people that can't understand that I am in fact a human being and as much as I would like to have a spotless reputation and impeccable track record in life, it just isn't that way. Been there, done that, had the t-shirt made by an employees mom. All the other things I have done amount up to being nothing more than a jack of all trades. To some it's a degrading quality to have. To others it's endearing. I like to lean towards being the Renaissance Man. I have a lot of work to go however. I still want to travel, compete in a ballroom competition, build a house, build more businesses, meet a few thousand more people, and experience life as the way it was meant to be lived.
I will do my best to portray an air of professionalism when I need to but I don't want to hide the grease on my face and the calloused hands in which I offer up to others. I've seen death, I've seen war, I've felt love, I've felt betrayal time and time again. I know what it's like to be alone in a sea of superficial life. I have an undying love for the concept of respect and even more respect for the ones who have stood by my side. I also have the ever increasing strength to walk away from anything and anyone that does nothing to support who I am. I may seem timid and unsure at times but its not for sheer lack of confidence in myself. Sometimes it's for lack of confidence in the words and advice I've received as gold.
Just as with any venture I've participated in, the end of anything specific has never meant resignation or throwing in the towel to my goals and dreams. A strange as it might sound it doesn't even mean I'm a flight risk. When I find myself in the company of others who make it very apparent that my presence is of no consequence to their existence, I check out. If I had a greater personal reason for staying in the military I would have. If I had a desire to stay in the town which my restaurant was in I might have kept at it. My current plethora of activities is a move in which I feel confident in. It's more than revisiting rogue accomplishments and cool stories to tell. Right now it's about laying a bit more of a solid foundation for something better.
Here's to driving on in light of judgment and ridicule. Here's to standing tall in the face of professional inquisitions from individuals and institutions that derive power from holding the fate of others lives in their hands. This is not a show of rebellion, it is a show of solidarity. I want to live for something more than a profit and the bottom line. The path I'm leading may seem a bit rocky but have you noticed what they lay down first when they are re-paving a highway?