Once Upon a Time, I Hit Rock Bottom

Ahhhh…Let me count the ways.

This is one of those realities where you live long enough you won’t hit the bottom rock bottom once but more than once. Being about this [entrepreneurial] life, hitting those bottoms is a regular occurrence.

So for me, along this journey, I’ve had several rock bottoms, or so I thought they were rock bottom, and at the time, they were, but looking back on them, there was no tearing asunder, no crippling fatal existential blows. Crippling, yes. Am I still impacted by a couple/few of them? Absofuckinlutely; however, for someone who’s built the way I am, it just adds to the resilience and the tempering of my steel.

Fire can be used to either destroy metal or temper it. One of my favorite lines delivered by Al Pacino and The Devil’s Advocate (1997) was the idea of pressure and fragility; when applied pressure to some people, it makes them focus, and for others, it makes them fold — collapse and fall apart.

“I’m Losing it!”

This is a term I’ve heard a little too much of lately. Hearing it is one thing, but I’ve also been on the receiving end of folks “losing it,” collapsing under pressure. Have empathize with them, to some degree, because everybody goes through trials and tribulations. Some people argue that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle; apparently, for some people, that is no true. They choose flight over fight.

My good friend would say this observation is not about making a judgment about right or wrong but instead simply an observation. However, I would counter with actions have consequences, and if the response is to flea to choose flight over fight, then what comes with that is engaging with somebody who you can’t depend on when the going gets tough? And in this life, goings will get tough.

So with that reality, the times that I’ve hit rock bottom, what are the times where I came to realize that the love and grace that I needed to help me across the burning sands two came from my father and good friends who’ve all been about that [entrepreneurial] life. Not everybody’s built for that life. But sometimes hitting rock bottom is just that, getting rocks, not soft sand.

So rather than getting into specifics about one story about my hitting rock bottom personally and professionally; I’ve hit the rocks many times in this last half century and could hit them again by the time my dash runs out.

I could minimize the number of times between now and the last word on my final page is writ by not taking chances or risks. But that would result in me living in fear and that is not living; that is walking around dead waiting to die.

That is not for me, damn the torpedoes! I choose to savor the gift the “present” offers, not regrets of the “past” or possible existential threats lurking in any of a number of possible “futures.” As a good friend recently said, or the possible missing out on some great future experiences by only imaging it filled with danger and disappointment.

So no, not everybody can rock with ambiguity and uncertainty. But I revel in them and occasionally thrive in them.

So my observation about hitting rock bottom over and over again, not from a lack of preparation or foresight but rather a matter of a life lived under my own terms, is necessary for living and learning, tempering my metal.

So I’m going to keep going deeper, seeking opportunities to make my dash as meaning as possible improving the lives of as many others as the universe allows.

Who knows, there could be the buried treasury of joy among those hard jagged edged rocks on the bottom.

Essay 8 of 25–08.05.2022

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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