I came across a quote recently that pretty much describes my life before I decided to go to nursing school.
"The only thing more painful than becoming yourself is not becoming yourself."
That's from Joseph Fasano.
I mean, I've said this a lot over the years, and I seem to keep learning it: the only true regrets I've had were for things I hadn't done or tried that I knew I could have and should have. Rarely were they for things I'd actually done.
The things I kept coming back to were the ones where I couldn't tell myself I'd given it a shot and it just didn't work out. I knew I could've at least tried, and I hadn't.
Last week I mentioned what I call my waking coma years. I was just kind of existing for a couple years before I decided to go to nursing school. To this day, I'm still not sure exactly what made me decide to do it. I think I just wasn't done yet.
But when I read that quote, it's the second half that really gets me. Because I know what it felt like to keep going while knowing I could've been doing more with my life. And I know how shitty it felt to look back at things I knew I should've tried.
Nursing school is one of the things I did try. It isn't something I have to look back on and wonder what might've happened if I'd gone.
And nowadays, when I look at the writing and all these things I'm trying to build, I still wish I'd started sooner. There's plenty I haven't figured out. But at least I'm getting to find out what happens when I try.
What Has My Attention
What I've been watching: Mark Manson's The Ensh*ttification of Everything.
I watched a bunch of different things this week, but this one made me think a little more than the others because so much of it felt true.
Manson gets into why things can look better in the economic data while using those same things feels like a pain in the ass. He talks about companies getting us used to a service, making it difficult to leave, then charging more and giving us less.
He also gets into how help from a neighbor, like watching your kids, gets replaced by a service you have to pay for.
And he doesn't finish by saying everything's terrible. His point is that huge improvements in human life can be real, and the frustration of getting through an ordinary day can be real too.
Just like with most Mark Manson videos, it's worth every bit of the 21 minutes.
Trail Marker
What's something you still wish you'd tried, and is it something you could still do? Hit reply and tell me.
Paul