Driving into the office today there was a segment on our local NPR station talking about people moving from other states (particularly the South) to Detroit - and what things they brought with them as heritage from their old lives.
It made me consider what my life would have been like had my parents gone through with a move they talked about when we were young.
Dad had lost his job at Pullman Standard (the rail car giant), and mom wasn't working. Our home was in danger of Sherrif's auction and times were very hard. They had discussed at length moving to Arkansas to a job a friend of my father said he could get him. We almost moved, but something kept them in PA.
My thoughts on how moving would have affected me, moved to much more how I think moving would have affected my parents (or maybe not) - and how that change would have affected me.
As we went through the loss of my mom, her cancer and her treatment, we learned a lot about our family. I didn't want to lose my mom without talking with her about her life - with dad, with her parents, her grandparents.
Mom always had a kind of negative fatalist mentality or outlook on life. I remember her saying many times as a kid... "Two Steps forward just to take three steps back." And "No matter what we do we can never get ahead."
As we talked with Dad through everything, we asked about moving, about why they didn't do things they always talked about and Dad constantly pulls the conversation back to being forced to do things by others... family members taking things from him, people threatening to not take care of our grandma... and people telling him that he'd never make it. And when we listen to dad talk today about his life, and about things happening today... this mentality paints an overall coating to how he sees the world. No matter what he does, someone is there to take his chances away, someone is there to flounder his plans / his success... even before it can start.
I think that had they taken the chance to move out of state, they would have had an opportunity to break that mindset, to see that not everything ends a step behind where you started and that you can allow others to stop you or you can make your own solid choices to push forward.
I think that would have had the biggest influence on me had we moved.
It's easy for me to default to a point of view that expects "the other shoe to drop" at any moment.
With every project, with every element of my life I always anticipate the upcoming event that will knock me off of my path.
Things are going well... something's going to come along to fuck it up.
This is my default.
But it gives control of my life to that event (if even the event never happens). It surrenders the idea that I am successful - it puts me in a place of defeat from the first step I take. I'm sure that I'm not alone.
We have to conquer that mentality.
Yes, issues come up, things happen, difficulties will block our way.
But they do not have to knock us off of our path.
We can achieve much more if we see these moments as opportunities to STRENGTHEN our path rather than knock us off of it. What path in life is straight? The variances in our path can defeat us or strengthen us. It's our choice on how we view them and what we do with them.