Everyday that I live I could kick my own ass for not finishing college. Every time I look at something someone has written on a subject which I'm unfamiliar, I cuss the day I quit. Back then, just out of the Army with grand plans, I thought I knew all I would ever need to know. I now know that I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. While I'm an avid and voracious reader, and have taught myself a lot of the same things, I feel like I'm less knowledgable than others who have a college diploma.
Before coming home, I had made plans while in Germany to go to a local junior college for two years and then transfer to a four year college. Uncle Sam was paying and I was going to take full advantage of it. I enrolled and everything was going great. While I was drinking every night, it wasn't a problem. I had all afternoon classes and could party at will. But at the end of the first year I fell into the drug culture that was pervasive everywhere. While I was in Germany I did enough drugs to stop a bus, but since I had been home it was drinking only. But then,with the passage of time, I started making friends. The wrong friends!
It started easy enough, a little pot everyday to just be like everyone else. Hell, in 1977, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who smoked or even sold pot. Before and after every class we with would go out to my buddies van and smoke a joint. As long as I had my Visine I didn't think anyone could tell and I could learn it fucked up. Wrong! As far as reading went, I had maxed the test and didn't even have to take it. But getting into math, or Algebra which I hated and was never good at anyway, I was lost. It was hard enough straight, but throw reefer in the equation and I was lost as a little puppy.
I was called into the professors office and asked what I wanted? Wanted, I didn't want anything. No, what did I want to do with my life? How did I know. I was interested in partying and going out with friends. He told me I had better start getting serious or I was gone. You have to maintain at least a C to keep a government grant. This is when I made the stupid decision to drop out and screw my life up. Instead of spending three more years on Uncle Sam's dime, I quit. A pattern that has followed me all my life.
I have worked all over this country doing a hundred different jobs that I hated. From pipe fitting in Cheyenne, to welding in Texas, to building houses in Florida. I made great money. As much or more than a college graduate could make. I blew a lot, but always sent money to my kids so they would want for nothing. When I moved back home I even had my own business and made great money. But something was always missing.
What was missing was knowledge. I still read everything I could get my hands on but I wasn't doing what I wanted to do. I worked with my hands all my life and raised three kids doing it. But I was miserable. The drinking, the drugs, were not giving me pleasure. On the contrary. They were just dragging me further down into a hole of depression. You look around at people seemingly happy, going about there daily lives and you think, man, what am I doing wrong? What was wrong was me!
So here I am on this vast wasteland called the internet. It is one amazing place. I can go anyplace, see everything and learn things I could have learned in college. You want to see the greatest paintings in the world, just press a key. Music, press a key. You can literally learn anything you want to learn here. Yet, it's not the same. I feel a large part of my life was wasted and I have to catch up and there just isn't enough hours in the day. With my medical history, I don't expect to live to a long life. But I will live the rest of my life learning. Something I should have done in another life.
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Comments
I'm kicking myself for not pursuing a degree in what I love: writing. I feel like Marlon Brando in "On The Waterfront": I could have had class, I could have been a contender. Yes, I realize writing gigs are hard to come by nowadays, but I would rather fail at something I love, than do what I'm doing now, which is fail at something I hate.
I still swing cats, but I just do it as a hobby now. (Oh God, now I've just incurred the wrath of the few women left who don't already hate me.)
R
Travis, thats the way I see it. I made very good money, but hated going to work. I always wanted a job where I could get up and "want" to go to work. Thanks~
John, yes I've been places and seen things that most have not, just a regret for a bad decision. Thanks.
The education one gets from life is priceless. I often learn from you! ~R~
Rated.
Rated
Wanderer, I always wanted to do something that stimulated me.
Thanks Chuck. I diffidently learn from you, big time!
Sheep, I really can't get out a lot with my medical condition. But I learn something everyday, from the internet, books, and people like you. Thanks~
Thanks Gwen. I have always read anything I could get my hands on. At six I used to read the baseball box scores. I loved baseball!
Jeff, the more comments I read, the more I see where people really didn't do what they had planned when finishing college. Weird!
Thank You Boaner, I try and stay up with everyday current events, and I love biography's of people who have made an impact on the world.
First, you are a good man and you've lived your life the best way you could. The thing with living is we're ALWAYS doing our best, even when we don't know it. No one says, hey fuck it. I'll just stop here and fuck up. We do what we're capable of doing.
Remember what John Lennon sang: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.". We live. We do things. We're not supposed to feel the years go by. We're supposed to do whatever we do and we do it not feeling the time go by. That's biology. And then it all STOPS and we catch our breaths and our lives.
Which brings me to: it's never too late. you COULD go back to school, even if it's adult classes. (I'm going to start talking a class in Jan myself, because I miss it and I want it). Take one class. You can afford one. ANd you can FOCUS on one and give it your all. And that will take you where it takes you. DO it. Don't shortchange yourself. School is different from the internet. Because it's not just a place, it's an exchange of ideas and friendships and experiences. And it's a place to be young again.
Scanner, you've done good!
I think I wrote a post on here in May about my father and how he was a self-described "white-trash" from the hills of Kentucky. But, he got his GED in the military and ended up with a pretty good career in the military and afterward working in a technical public health oriented field.
Scanner, I get the distinct impression that you've had a pretty successful life in spite of your lack of formal education and the substance abuse. From what I've read of you in your posts you're a good man. And it don't get no better'n that, my friend.
Thanks, Kirsty!!
G, I'll never stop reading and learning.Thanks.
Thanks, Emma!!
Rated!
Look at western governor's university, university of wyoming, lots of different schools with outreach/internet credit (and your diploma looks just the same).
I spent 28 years in a career I now realise I wasn't cut out for, so I too feel I've wasted a lot of my life and wish I'd done things differently.
Show me a person with no regrets and I'd say that's someone who has learned very little. But no good looking back - just time to make the most of what we have left.
Touching post. Rated highly.
Andy, do they make a pill for a couch potato?
Regena, I've seen some of those but it's really just a piece of paper now. I like the learning part and the knowledge that comes with it. Thanks!!
Linda, I always thought most teachers loved it. But kids today who where raised on the internet should be smarter going in. Thanks~
LL2, Ol' Frank knew what he was singing about~~
look back on the golden age of the U.S. in the 50's a lot people didn't even have high school degrees
we are worse off now with all the geniuses
some of these narrow specialists know nothing outside of their little area, they lead sheltered lives and look down on some people who know more than they do
you are self-educated
and you are doing a great job
you weren't the first and you won't be the last
a lot of very successful people never went to college