Too late for what?

The go-getters in the world will you tell you things like, if you can dream it, you can make it happen. If you can connect your desires with your doings, you'll see results? Make your visions your realities. 


I'm improvising a little, of course, but you get the general idea.


The problem with those boulder-sized wisdoms is that a lot of times these go-getters were merely the next in line for something, part of a family name, were sorta kinda tossed a damn good hand, and can therefore attribute their success to hard work that they never had to do.


I'm really good at generalizing when it comes to things that make my stomach turn, but bear with me for just a moment. Sure, some people are lucky or blessed or destined to always be in the right place at the inexplicably right time. Oh well, right? Good for them, we should all suppose, and in the same beat not forget the ways in which we have been just as fortunate. 


STILL, if you're at all human like me, you can acknowledge that there is a sheer level of difficulty in being happy for other people. Genuinely so, anyway. If you're really going after something, and someone else gets there first, it's all we can do to not mentally trip them on their way to the finish line. I'm just saying. Whatever your downfalls are or aren't, whether you are appalled by my honesty or relieved by it, I think you may know what I mean, whether you would publicly admit it or not. 


BUT, for every daddy's girl that snakes your internship, for every promotion that is given to the wrong person (you decide), for every celebrity that sails into an ivy league school, there are some true success stories that often surprise us, nab our attention, and give us hope. 


Example? I've got one, of course, otherwise this entire lead-in would turn out to be awfully aimless, which is surely the opposite of what encouragement aims to achieve. 


My father is in his sixties, has not had any schooling past the age of an elementary student, and English is his second language. For the last twenty-five years, he has attempted to run his own business, through which he met many obstacles, both financially and physically. Though he is hard-working and I love him dearly, though most people that meet him find him charming and hilarious, he was never quite the business mogul. He tried. He really did, and for that I have to commend him. 


Recently, an unfortunate week on the road brought him one over-turned vehicle, a head injury and persistent pain. After several weeks of talking to doctors, lawyers, insurance companies, and time spent reassuring his current clients, he realized it might be time to consider other avenues of income. A lot had gone wrong during the length of this business: failed partnerships, long hours, and lots of lost money.


So, he made a few calls. So, he had a job interview. So, he got the job.


What? Just like that? Maybe, I guess. It took a lot leading up to that point, if I were to delve into the long version. The point is, the odds are clearly not on his side. Having a variety of odd job experience, working in restaurants and kitchens, some time in the military. He's never used a computer. His recent purchase of a smart phone has left him asking me some hysterical and altogether endearing questions. The email, he finds, is particularly baffling. 


What I'm trying to say is, there is hope in what lies against us. If you asked anyone, I don't think they would pinpoint my dad as the most likely to get hired. Honestly, neither did I. What I was basing that on was his ability to write a resume, and for that matter, what he would be able to put on it as work experience. It feels appropriate, and oddly reassuring, to be humbled by the unexpected. It feels good to know that we don't have to shrug off the impossible or even assume there IS an impossible. There's something to be said for thinking you can and then making it happen. Why not? By now, it's the very best thing we can believe. 

My dad, at 21, working in a diner kitchen.