Out of Privileges, But Not Out of Time: Mastering Failures & Turning Skills Into Successes

I used to always go around the room and ask,

If you could sit next to someone at a dinner party, who would it be?

To make a point, I poetically extended myself stating that the woman who has been divorced multiple times, seen the world a thousand times, and had all the stories. Only to become her years later. 

Freshmen are allowed to sit at my dinner party, but nobody ever heard an interesting story from a virgin fresh out of university. What they have to offer is a fresh set of lenses, to refresh our perspective. There is wonder in that. There is so much privilege in starting fresh.

My privileges ran out.

Now I am solely working on my own without help from anyone.

All the connections I now have and continued to nurture are of my own active, breathing volition.

I will be creating my own privileges from now on, thank you very much.

I closed off connections that could benefit and have to do things on my own now. Mastering skills, my career, a strong relationship. My friends are having children and moving on with their lives.

It is even harder to schedule time with successful friends who have everything together. 

I used to be able to pick their brain and see how they react to life in real time. They have their partner and babies to do that with now. Of course, their life is going to blast past yours when they already continue to fulfill their dreams. The distance of success seems to grow further.

I used to think it was odd that I was married so young and others did not catch up yet. Two divorces later – one of profound effort that I was not prepared for whilst the other out of pure loneliness – I fell behind. But not really. At least I felt like I fell behind.

I made plans and God laughed essentially saying, ‘I am the only Creator here.’

I have learnt so much about

• What to and what not to do in a healthy romance (and how much effort it takes) 
• What it means to have a good career and business 
• How important it is to make and nourish beautiful relationships with everyone I hold dearly

In other words, I grew up.

I do not want to go on forever borrowing money, asking for rides, and wondering what to write down on formal paperwork. Being able to do things for yourself is wonderful. Having a team of two grow together is even more incredible. Especially when you are on the page. It becomes quite delicious.

At 30 years old, I find so many young people in their early twenty-somethings who are making so much money from doing things I always wanted to do. But I never even tried.

If they can have their lives together so young, I can at least use my years to do something with years of learning the hard way.

The best time to plant a tree was 5 years ago. The second best time is yesterday. Jk. It is now.

Instead of viewing things as ‘at this age I want to have this checked off my list’, we need to say, ‘Once I have done this thing this many times, I will have mastered it.’ Our math is all wrong. We forget to factor in sick days, setbacks, and times we took off before getting back on the horse.

It took me a year to get back on track after what I thought would only take 3-4 months to regain my footing. But now I can finally move forward.

I feel so fulfilled. Knowing what I need to do and actually doing it. Action is so sexy.

We talk about our dreams relentlessly. Whether it is with our friends or in our head. But our habits tell us a different story.

Is what you are doing right now taking you closer to or further from your goals?

We can talk about goals all day long and nothing still happens.

Most of the time we are working toward a different dream.

You might be working a 9-5 not sure how to retire. Or risked quitting your 9-5 to worry about how to put food on the table with your new business. You might still be figuring out what you want to do after having started a high-paying career realizing it is not for you.

I have seen 

• A dentist who has never made it as a painter. 
• A businessman who never had a single successful business. 
• Multiple rich people who did not have the right connections for their kids to land their dream job. 

Even though I am out of most of my privileges, I lean on one privilege few seldom overcome: using time wisely.

Enough time has passed that I can look back at the mistakes and learn from them. Yet I still also have enough time to implement these techniques for bountiful future successes.

Livet skal forstaas baglaens, men leves forlaens 

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Søren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher

We have so many privileges when we are young yet do not realize it.

1. Time on our hands 
2. Living with caring parents 
3. Youth itself 
4. Certain connections you are close with
5. Classes we did not pay attention to 
6. A person we do not fully appreciate who has everything, but we did not know what we were looking for

These are times to pursue failure while it does not affect us before the cost becomes too much or too late.

It is never too late to try and prevent future failures.

The moment you realize you can still turn your life around is when you are given the choices to change your legacy or watch yourself slowly decline.

I used to be extremely disciplined. Then a ton of scary life things happened where I had to start over my entire life from scratch. New state, new home, new car, new job, new faces. Now that I got over the hard new things, I am settling into my new successes.

I am thinking of privileges of mine that initially come to mind:

• Solid experience (in work + relationships) 
• Interesting experiences of the 0.01%
• My ability to learn from these

Small wins create momentum.

Momentum creates habits.

Habits create a lifestyle.

Is what you are doing right now taking you closer to or further from your goals?

Some people will move countries to work a simple 9-5 forever to make sure their kids have health insurance and a slightly better education. But more and greater opportunities. They do not have a lot of wiggle room for failure. Strict schedules and even stricter consequences.

Then there are others who can be selfish with their time and not stress about the needs of others. Their complaints look like little sacrifice – slow wi-fi, where to eat, and what new places they want to visit. But they are free to have those issues without backlash.

I am in this weird in-between. 

I want to have a family, but have to get my life together before such milestones. Or at least get the process started. I have a solid 5 years, then a shaky 3 more when it comes to my biological clock. So much can be done in this time.

There are a handful of fabulous stories in my family and my sweetheart’s of women having children much later than intended. It just means that I have to live longer to savour more years. Take care of my health, make a little more sacrifice where others do not pay attention.

Most people overestimate what they can do in 1 year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years.

Bill Gates

Otherwise, I have everything else. A stable home, a wonderful love of my life, and somehow God is smiling at me this time. I do not need much. As long as my health is good, I can move freely within my privileges. All because I have come to terms with the fact that time is my friend and time is on my side. 

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