Starting Over
How we got here
Sitting there at an unoccupied sales desk in my 24 Hour Fitness personal trainer uniform, I scanned the faces of the salespeople smiling and dialing their lead lists.
Fools. They don’t know what I know.
It was just another day in LA; spring 2004. That was the moment I knew something different was going to happen to me.
Nine years later, in a sweaty shack in Costa Rica, my AA sponsor would tell me, “The future will be different, Damon. Good or bad is up to you.”
Sigh…
Sobriety was starting over at a time in life when my peers were buying homes and starting families. We were barely into our mission of living abroad. And I couldn't fathom tucking my tail to go home, so I started over.
This was also when I picked up a meditation practice. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from this practice is the freedom to start over, but let’s put that aside for the moment.
The harder we worked, the more work they would expect us to do.
Back at that desk in 2004, I’d just finished the book, “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” by Robert Kiyosaki. It was so clear to me that we were all just slaving to make someone else more money, and that none of us were secure. Not really.
The harder we worked, the more work they would expect us to do. Sometimes that would mean more money, but it would never mean the sort of money the aforementioned “they” were making.
At the time (age 30), I was a Fitness Manager. I was 100% sure my days of working like this were numbered. I’d soon be close to early retirement if I could only get out of my studio apartment into a positive cash flow situation.
I should say, “positive cash flow investment.”
It would be seven more years, an overfinanced mortgage, and a handful of promotions before I would finally tap out.
I should say, “We would finally tap out”
After many drunken (and sober) conversations about moving someplace tropical to “open a bar,” two weeks of wedding festivities in Turks & Caicos, and 18 months of great fortune and serious savings, Cristina and I left the USA.
We, our dog, and three 50-pound bags each.
My dreams of eventually cashing in on an IPO with 24 Hour Fitness had spawned mushrooms in that eternal waiting room. When it was clear that no miracle of instant millionaire status would materialize, I surrendered everything.
“I can’t do it anymore,” I blurted out to Cristina one day after work.
I’d just closed the sliding door behind me and stood on the mat, shrugging.
“Can’t. Do. What?” Cristina asked, pausing between each word of the sentence.
It had been about a week since we’d returned from our two-week wedding and honeymoon adventure in Turks and Caicos. That trip had ruined me for the life I’d built, not for the marriage we just consummated.
“This whole work-hard thing,” I replied.
We declared that we would not toil away our lives in hopes that we could one day buy back our freedom when it would be far less valuable, old age.
That night, I told her everything, my frustrations, and the plan to short-sell the townhouse so we could start over.
Luckily, Cristina was with me.
We declared that we would not toil away our lives in hopes that we could one day buy back our freedom when it would be far less valuable, old age. We would not go gentle. We would rage against the dying of the night, and get hammered on a beach in Costa Rica.
And that’s what I did once we landed in Costa Rica. For seven months, until I figured out that nihilistic anarchy wasn’t the freedom I sought, I drank every day. When I finally surrendered, I started writing more and began a humble meditation practice.
Despite this being what I would characterize as a period of devolution, people tuned in to hear our story. At the time, I was blogging stories about our adventures, and many old friends and family members made a point to keep up.
They’d read a blog, then message to ask about how things were going. I could hardly believe they were interested. Their curiosity didn’t end there. In the 12 years since then, many people have expressed a curiosity about our lives.
When we socialize with folks from back home, either here (in Mexico) or somewhere in the States, they ask about it. This creates a weird kind of friction for me. I always want to know about their lives, their work, and what matters to them.
This is the coach in me. My modus operandi in any conversation is to provoke you to tell me about You.
But time after time, when Cristina and I would hang with Americans, they would not relent. To them, we live in paradise.
I’m so dense on this point. I never notice that they’ve been gazing at Cristina and me with sparkly eyes, fantasizing about our lives. I’m always too busy trying to get a word in edgewise to turn the conversation back on them!
And then it hits me. They don’t want to talk about themselves. They want us to talk.
It’s kind of my nightmare. I loathe that moment when I realize I’ve been bloviating unchecked for a prolonged time. I mean, I’ll get sucked into the invitation as easily as any of us, but I do try to avoid it.
It doesn’t matter to these folks that my life has felt rudderless since leaving the US.
It doesn’t matter that I no longer have the means to retreat to some desert oasis in a convertible Beemer every other month.
They couldn’t care less about how our first business venture in Costa Rica ended in our business partner grifting us for more money than I care to admit. (It was nearly enough to send us back to the US.)
And it never matters to them that I’m harboring a story I tell myself in dark moments about what a failure my life has become.
Failure? They only see the fantasy. Hell. We live where people vacation.
If the last 12 years have been anything, they’ve been a lesson in starting over, and then starting over again.
Most recently, when almost ten years of grinding as an independent writer and copywriter culminated in the admission I felt unfulfilled by that work, I knew what I had to do.
I had to start over. Again.
Not from a mountain of success, but from somewhere like a first-base camp, dirty, and too exhausted to take another step. Making matters worse, the thought of trudging back down the mountain to attempt another summit seemed selfish. And irresponsible. We can add “embarrassing” to that pile too.
And yet Cristina wouldn’t have any talk of maybe.
I mean, I’m nearly fifty years old. We don’t own a home. Our assets are thin. But here we are…
Part of me still feels that a better person would have knuckled down on my career capital to create a new opportunity. I could get another writing gig, one with another agency. I could.
Never mind that the last time I worked for an agency I suffered chest pain the first week, and that writing for money robbed me of my love for it. Having never really made it as a writer, I felt I hadn’t earned the right to start over again.
I mean, I’m nearly fifty years old. We don’t own a home. Our assets are thin. But here we are. I’m two years into a coaching practice. I wish I could report the climb to the first base camp has been a breeze.
Frankly, I’m not there yet. At this point, I’m more focused on making solid footfalls. Each step is another investment in starting over. In their own way, each step itself is its own mini version of starting over, which brings me back to meditation.
What’s tough to avoid in a meditation practice is the urge to “do it right.”
Most of us come into the practice with notions. We may desire to become enlightened, find our true selves, or maybe find god. What we learn right away is how hard it is just to keep our attention on an object like the breath, even for a few seconds.
Sticking with it, if for no other reason than self-preservation or dignity, we flex our definition of “doing it right.” As far as I can tell, doing it right in meditation is either impossible or it’s actually doing everything wrong.
To persevere in the practice, one learns to start over.
This can take place at any point during a meditation. At first, the idea is that starting over is something I’ll do until I master my focus. But then one learns this is how it is, even for the masters. Perhaps even the historic Buddha himself.
This, as it turns out, is the practice: Starting over
And then starting over again.
And again.
Final thought…
The traditional view of past lives is there is some immutable self who, through some sprinkle of fairy dust over a mystic portal, goes on to live in the body of another human.
I’m very skeptical of this view. I’ve looked and can find no self at the center of experience. There is simply experience. There’s so much worth questioning on this point, but that’s another piece entirely.
To me, each time we start over, a new life begins. They’re all housed under one birth certificate. In this way, reincarnation is a constant element of our lives as people. This is how I make sense of karma too. The dumb stuff I did in yesterday’s life can haunt me in today’s, except I think the scale is more like moments than days. And with each moment of starting over, the chance to get it right this time is reset until the next time we start over.
As with anything, it’s hard to find the edges here, but that’s really not important.
What matters is that we give ourselves the permission to begin again.
But enough about me. What’s your experience with starting over?
You taught me, “just take a step, and then another…” It resonates the same with me as starting over. A step is another chance to do it again.
I like what you said about reincarnation being not past lives (in the traditional Buddhist sense) but this life reinvented. I've started over more than once, including recently. My motto is "the only tense is future." The past has passed; the present is like an arrow in flight -- if you reach up to grab it, it's already gone. That leaves the future. There are two ways to deal with it. Sit back and let it come to you and do with you what it will (which isn't much), or reach out and try to shape it into what you want it to be. A therapist told me that years ago, and it's how I've tried to live my life since. It's amazing how many doors open when you do that. Cheers.