“Is the person in the mirror a reflection of who you are or who you want to be? Is s/he your friend?” ~@ninayau
Written by Ken Bernock.
It’s a wonderful day in Michigan, 70′s and sunny. As I run next to the water this afternoon I can see my reflection and looks like someone is running beside me. The person running next to me is someone I never would have guessed.
When I was younger I imagined myself as a professional hockey player, as hockey consumed the greater part of my childhood life into my early twenties. I always told myself if hockey did not workout, I wanted to be a huge tycoon in real estate. I loved real estate and every aspect of it; so I thought.
I pictured myself dating beautiful women and never settling down. I didn’t want the life of a married man, being committed with no other options to the same women for the rest of my life. Hell no, have you heard how high the divorce rate is? How many divorces go smooth with no fighting? None!
Who is this man running next to me? The man I envisioned long ago is completely the opposite.
I wasn’t one of the lucky ones who made it as a hockey player, but I found that I love coaching the game and working with the players even more.
I never pictured myself finding my beautiful wife at nineteen. We dated for seven years, now married for almost five and still happily married. Crazy I know.
I did the real estate thing, found out that it’s not for me. I still own two homes and would love to get rid of one of them. Instead I found personal training was my cup of tea. I truly enjoy training athletes.
The truth is, most of the time we grow up and become nothing like we pictured; living a life that we didn’t imagine at all. I want to be a police officer, astronaut or maybe a fire fighter, how about a professional baseball player?
In college you start taking your core classes, then you have specific classes that you choose as part of your career. Today most people’s career is far from what they went to college for.
As we get older we find out more about what we want and love in life. Over the years we slowly change our prospective, what we like and dislike. As individuals we grow, have more experience with truly living, and learn more about ourselves.
Sometimes we reach that goal that we have been working so hard towards to find that it isn’t what we expected. Just like real estate for me, it was not what I expected so I moved on and found personal training.
It’s not easy to find something that you enjoy, are good at, and make a good living all at the same time. Some of us will be searching for this most of our lives. If you haven’t found this, keep searching.
