What drives you today?

Honestly for me on many days the answer is not clear enough.  I have struggled to motivate myself since retirement... and without motivation, it's hard to get the change you're looking for.  I don't even feel like I need or want to change all that much... I like me, and I like my life for the most part. I also like that I'm finally in a position to make time for myself after all I've been through. The problem I often struggle with is making myself a priority, so I can do things to live a life more in line with how I'd like to.  It's not complicated even... mostly just a few hours of nature each day and to do more art.  Eat better and minimize the clutter I still see in most areas of my life... find more good honest people with something interesting to learn and avoid those who only want something from me. 

Like many veterans, I have a harder time finding purpose since retirement. As it turns out, a large part of what made us... "us" was that need to sacrifice some facet of ourselves in order to feel worthwhile to ourselves.  The problem with this type of life is that after you're no longer doing that thing that gave you that purpose, you need to learn what drives you to make the transition from soldier to Vet; or  from one purpose to another.  Like every stage of one's life, you can't move on of your still holding on to something you can't take with you... like the past. "You cannot become a veteran until the soldier is gone"

That's why I'm not unique in this, and I know I'm not alone. I'm learning more and more as I get exposed to the bigger trauma community of first responders: paramedics, police, fire and corrections.  The pattern seems relatively clear in a majority of our cases that our trauma patterns growing up have contributed to our ability and desire to "sacrifice" some form of our own selves to make the lives of others a better place.  Often that expresses itself in some way to make up for feeling like nobody protected some vulnerable part of ourselves during our earlier development... whatever the trauma may have been, it ended with you. ​

This is likely what made me excel in the military.  I don't mean by getting promotions or rank, but my version of what I wanted out of the experience.   I wanted an adventure and to push myself to a limit I might not have known, and to grow in ways I figured I was lacking. Not that I knew what I was lacking back then, but it seemed the military could at least provide that next level of challenge... and it did. ​

It also instilled in me the real concept of tribe and brotherhood in ways I don't think any other path could have for me in particular.  

I wasn't a great soldier in any particular way that would stand out.  I wasn't particularly fit, or bright... couldn't run for shit and had no real expertise in anything special. I wasn't particularly good at anything really... but putting my team and my mission above myself.  I could suffer with the best of them and that's what makes an ordinary soldier extraordinary in many cases.   Fitness is all well and good, but the ability to suffer past yourself and find a reason to make a joke of the situation is what takes many a soldier a step past his own level of comfort... and I know that goes for others in a life of service. 

It's also what keeps someone like me content in his garage for half a decade, as long as the rest of the world seems OK enough for him to just let his guard down. 

This is how I've lived my life for the majority of the last decade as I felt my purpose and value being reduced, post service, but the thing is, I don't feel like I'm not valuable.  I'm just in the wrong place.  Even traveling to Ukraine feels more like home than my own house and village I live in.  That's not a negative... I moved here and built this life for a reason that no longer exists, so the obvious answer is, it's time to find out what is right for me and what I need to let go moving forward. 

A friend of mine has committed to doing what he calls "Not Rob" things, meaning he's doing things that "Rob" would normally not do... 

and I think I'm gonna try this the next few months and see what "not me" things are for me. 
​
​Stay tuned.