Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Saturday, October 30, 2010 9:11:52 AM
In Korea, I was a radio scout. All scouts in my regiment were volunteers,
which tells you something about the average intelligence level of scouts. We had three types of patrols: fight patrols
when we went out with an infantry company looking for trouble, full squad
patrols and little three man exploratory patrols, which were most frequent.
My
best friend in the scouts was Ray Barker. Ray and I joked a lot, not always about things normal people might find
amusing, but laughter made our lives easier. This joking irritated some of the people we worked with, but it didn’t
seem to bother Stan O’Connor, who was squad leader. He always selected Ray and I to accompany him
on those three man excursions.
Our
colonel never told us how to do the three man patrols. Instead, we were given an objective. How we achieved it was up to us. Sometimes, they were little casual jaunts out
into no-mans land, but often we encountered things we believed we couldn’t handle
and changed directions. Sometimes these
were simply matters of unexpected geography in the mountains, but they still
required change. Sometimes those changes
didn’t work out well and we had to change again, but all three of us survived
to come home and we all found things to laugh about – our own stupidity if nothing
else.
Life
is a lot like that. As children, our
parents establish our goals, but as we become adults we establish our own and
direct our own movements. Sometimes,
that works, but it is normal for people to find obstacles, sometimes impervious
obstacles, which block them. The only
thing to do then is to laugh (perhaps grin and bear it is a more realistic
suggestion) and look at available alternatives and change.
I
have eight children. The oldest five are
in their forties and fifties. Not a
single one of them has been successful in achieving their initial goals along
the paths they first envisioned. They
have made changes, sometimes dramatic changes in vocation, in their twenties,
thirties and into their forties. Yet,
all are now successful in their vocations and have lives which are satisfying
to them.
My
youngest children are in their twenties. Each of them has specific goals in mind. Good luck! They will encounter
difficulties. Perhaps impossibilities.
But
instead of invading my children’s lives, let me illustrate with my own. All through childhood I wanted to be a
farmer. But being a farmer takes
knowledge and money, I lacked both. A
substitute was to become an elementary school teacher, but the army interrupted
my teaching career. While overseas, I
learned of a hundred and fifty acres for sale in southwest Missouri for eleven hundred
dollars. I had the eleven hundred. I wrote home and asked my father to buy the
land for me. I knew I could get a job in
the area teaching and I thought I could be a farmer on the side. My father wrote back that he and a friend had
visited the farm and decided it wasn’t worth the money. So much for that dream.
Returning
as a teacher, I found I loved teaching. I worked at it and was judged a good teacher by my principal and
supervisors, including the associate superintendent. Then the principal retired and I found I
could not work with the new one. I quit
and returned to school. My next job? I was employed as a vocational counselor and
industrial psychologist: a vocation I hadn’t known existed a few years
earlier. This is not the time to list
all of my jobs, but I often found obstacles to my continuing where I was and
what I was doing. In all cases I simply
had to change, sometimes jobs, sometimes careers. I ended up employed by the army in Germany and
certified in mathematical statistics and operations research: a long way from
farming and teaching fifth grade in southwest Missouri. All the changes required effort on my part,
often returning to school in the evenings to obtain some necessary credential,
often changing location. There were
always difficulties, difficulties that my bride and I laughed at while we
encountered them.
It
is going to be the same with my younger children. Loving them, I wish I could predict the
obstacles they will encounter, but I can’t. Neither can they. I hope that
when they do, they are able to laugh, change and have partners who can laugh
with them.
This
is not, however, restricted to me and my children. Everyone has dreams. Everyone has plans. Everyone encounters difficulties. Success in life often, usually, requires
change. Accept it, laugh at it and enjoy
it.