Chapter 5. Journey learnings to grow from: yours, mine and ours

Chapter 5.  Journey learnings to grow from: yours, mine and ours

At my age it is becoming easier and easier to recognize the learnings that have come from every one of my life journeys.  Now that I am about to begin my 7th decade alive I can easily take control of my journeys to choose them, plan them or simply to take them while winging it with a partially open eye to caution myself against potential danger before it happens.

Often as a speaker and trainer I have discussed the 7 Ages of Man lessons that describe how we change over the various decades of our lives.  Looking back now using my journey metaphor I can see how my journeys have changed with each succeeding decade of my life.

From birth to about 10 years old we look to our parents for most knowledge.  We look to them for love, support and protection.  I occasionally question them when they seem to be stopping us from doing what we want to do at a given moment.  Yet when we get into trouble or have a problem we look to them for help.

From a little over ten to when we turn 20, our teenage years, puberty time, we look to our friends and an occasional external adult for knowledge.  Some times this is a neighbor, a distinct relative, a teacher or our first employer or supervisor. 

In our 20s we look to our employers and fellow employees for knowledge, while we may believe that we have the answers to all life’s questions already.  We may disagree with decisions and directions but mostly we look to them.  Yes I remember, working in two separate architectural firms, one when I was in the my 20s and the other when I was in my early 30s.  In both cases I was working with groups of mostly 20 somethings, mostly all college graduates, all intending to become licensed architects.  Most days they tended to philosophize a great deal and fine fault with our profession.  The first firm was a world renown architectural firm.  The primary architect and owner of the firm, Gunnar Birkerts was world renown.  Nearly every building he ever designed was published in every architectural magazine in the world.  The employees were there to work with him.  To them it was like being at graduate school and being paid for it.  It was an honor to work there.  Their discussions never criticized the value and meaning of our work.  Occasionally they would challenge some aesthetic decision but never the value or meaning of our work.  The second firm was a highly successful south Florida firm that had become successful cranking out beach front and resort condominiums all over the east and west coasts of Florida and in a few other states.  Those employees found fault not just in the aesthetics but also the value and meaning of our projects: just more condos to litter the beach and destroy the environment.  The funny part was that they were designers who all could have done more to improve the final designs.

In our 30s we look to ourselves for knowledge while trying to prove to everyone else that we are knowledgeable.  We tend to become involved in organizations and become officers.  We tend to become involved as coaches, managers of sports teams, scout leaders, mentors.  We seem to seek ways to demonstrate our knowledge and leadership skills.

In our 40s we rest on our gained knowledge or at least we used to be able to before computers, the internet and the world wide web.  In the past we would have landed a management position by our 40s and would ride it out possibly all the way to retirement.

In our 50s we tend to challenge our actions, efforts, knowledge and begin to believe that we probably have wasted our lives and have not truly lived up to our potentials or childhood and young adulthood dreams.  We often spend a great deal of personal thought time mulling over our pasts.  Moodiness, changing moods, burnout, even mild to moderate depression appears to be come while we begin to examine our lives in detail.

In our 60s we begin to realize that information is infinite and that the only knowledge we truly need is limited and mostly comes from accepting our lives, accepting ourselves, families and friends and trusting our hearts to make the most important decisions.  We seem to relax more.  We find more time to play or fill our free time with activities we enjoy.  For some people they begin to travel more, garden more, puts around with their hobbies more.  Moment by moment enjoyment seems to become important.

In our 70s and beyond we see those years as a bonus and strive to enjoy each year, month, week, day and moment as a cherished gift.  For many of us this is when our grandchildren are teenagers and we can develop strong bonds with them that we never found time to when our own children were teenagers.  Neither of us see each other as the enemy.

The interesting thing to me is that I learned this information initially when I was in my 20s first listening to Reverend Cal Blue and Reverend John Parish, the ministers at Strathmoor Methodist and from Gail Sheehy in her very popular book, Passages.  Yet I have had to revisit that knowledge several times before choosing to be consciously aware of its power each day, each day as I consciously and deliberately choose my journey for that particular day.  Finally accepting this knowledge may very well help me complete one of my final long range journeys.

Re-examining the 7 Ages of Man from the perspective of journeys versus guided tours it appears that there are several times when we can take off on self-created journeys, simply wander, go off on holidays or vacations with friends or we can simply go along on guided bus or car tours.

As young children we can take our short excursions on our tricycles with our Red Flyer Wagons towed behind us or on our two wheel bicycles with or without a friend on the handle bars or the back fender hanging to our waists.  Such journeys may last an hour, all morning or possible an entire day if we pack a lunch to talk along.  These travels seem natural parts of being children.  We don’t seem to attach any special meanings to them.  During those years we can be Tom Sawyers, Huck Finns, Dennis the Menace’s, Calvins experiencing great adventures. Or we can be dutiful children who simply do what the adults around us plan for us: sport team practice or games, exercise programs, tennis lessons, music lessons, dance, acting, scouts.  Our days can become filled with “planned activities” and no spontaneous, creative, free time to live and grow.

As teenagers we probably take more excursions when we borrow our parent’s,  brother’s or sister’s car, a friends’ cars or even just driving our own.  As a teenager I probably took more individual journeys or wandered more than most of my peers because I was a loner.  I floated in and out of groups and wanted to become part of various groups of my fellow students from the college prep students I was in class with most of the day to the tough kids who were always around Dutch’s, my favorite hangout spot across from the high school.  But I was never really a member of any of the groups or clubs.  I was in the Explorer Scouts for only a couple years until our troop was disbanded because of no interested fathers.

In both of these cases, decades or periods of time our journeys seem to be short term and rarely tied to any long range or self-created master plan.  Yet many of our heroes did choose their own destinations or plans when they were teenagers: Walt Disney, Tom Edison, Dave Thomas (Wendy’s), the members of REM or many other bands, numerous artists whether painters, sculptors, poets, or writers.  We as, average, everyday, never get into any real serious trouble folk usually do not become aware or take control of our lives and create our own journeys with any complete control when we are teenagers.  Usually we do not begin to realize our lives are ours to control until we are in our late 40s or are fortunate enough to have one of those special teachers or mentors who help us obtain such wisdom much younger or perhaps we hear a motivational speech or read an inspirational book.

Yes in our 20s and 30s we might have opportunities to lead or manage people but rarely do we look back at our lives yet to examine if where we are, what we are doing is truly what we want to do with our lives.  For many of us we have been living scripts, loosely or deliberately planned by our parents or the parts of society we grew up in.

Subconsciously I have seemed to understand, at least vaguely, that my life was in my control most of my life.  But I didn’t necessarily take complete control very often except to wander, wander from day to day from week to week, year to year, degree to degree, job or career to still other jobs and careers.  For short periods of time I took charge.  But then I would fall into a routine and stop trying to control my life.  I sort of drifted for awhile until dissatisfaction, boredom or burnout would occur again.

For me I have experienced several short periods of time when I took control until the past couple years when very little in my life has become important enough to me to create an intense passion.  Accomplishing a few specific goals has occasionally sparked passion in me.  In my early 20s while working at two part-time jobs with WXYZ-TV as a news headline writer and weekend editor I would think about possibly making that my career.  But then the fact that I was spending the rest of my waking hours trying to complete an architectural degree would stop that fantasy cold.  After graduating from architectural school I became excited about architecture and the potential of creating beautiful and perhaps famous architecture.  I also got excited about creating beautiful graphics within 3 or 4 years.  In my 30s after completing the tests and becoming a licensed architect and an associate with the firm I was working with then, I became excited about working with gifted children.  I especially liked the idea of working with ones like I had been in elementary and high school, the gray children: those who have much more potential yet rarely use, tap or develop it, they just get by without calling attention to themselves. In my late 30s I became excited about becoming a creativity consultant.  One year into my doctorate, having already left most of my previous life behind me, including my sons and friends in Florida and risking far more than I had realized, it became blatantly obvious to me that there was no one on the face of the Earth who made their full-time living doing what I had most recently become excited about.  For twenty years since then I have mostly floated along, typically wandering here and there with a mildly driving vision of trying to S.P.R.E.A.D. creative thinking throughout workplaces around the world.  It feels like a mission but it doesn’t give me the same level of passionate feeling that I have experienced several times before.

In 1997 and 1998 over the ten month period when my beautiful Merry was stricken and struggled with an indefinable illness and then died I spent a great deal of time re-examining all aspects of my life and my potential future.  That, one more, major life tragedy slapped me hard enough to realize that once again that this is my life and that it is my life to choose what I want to do with it.  Since her death I have been choosing to do that each day, at least much more of the time.  Now at 58 I am finally taking complete control of my life with a vision and a mission that are totally supported by my values in life.  My hope is that I can rekindle a passionate level spirit about them.

I believe that we can take control of our lives at nearly any age at least from around 16 years year old and older, if we have the internal fortitude, strength and opportunity with or without external support.  The lives of many of our heroes are filled with examples of them doing just that.  It no doubt is much easier if we have a strongly supportive, loving and probably challenging parent or two or other adult who does the same: teacher, coach, mentor, boss.

During the first ten or so years of my life most things seemed to go along smoothly like a script from any of the popular family style television shows: Father Knows Best, Make Room for Daddy, Ozzie and Harriet or Leave It To Beaver except for the first few years of dealing with my birth defect, my cleft palette, cleft lip and crooked nose.  I have no memories of pain or the difficulties I probably experienced or all the dedication, commitment and hard work of my mother who I understand did everything she could to help correct or fix my defect to make me “normal”.  Those who meet and get to know me quickly learn that she partially failed, I have never been truly normal.  I make speak or appear to speak like everyone else but in nearly no other way am I normal unless I choose to not be noticed at a particular moment and choose to appear to blend in and approximate being normal. 

As a teenager I remember being a little sensitive around strangers always seeming to stare at me because of my looks but not with people I knew.  I was very shy around girls except in our classrooms when they were just other students.  I didn’t have any trouble talking.  Most people would agree I don’t today either.

Then on my 21st birthday my favorite aunt, Aunt Sallie’s, funeral was held.  She was one of my mother’s sisters who had also left Scotland to come to the U.S. to live and ended up in Detroit, Michigan.  She had suffered and died from lung cancer, no doubt brought on by her heavy smoking.  Her in-laws, my Grandma and Grandpa Mulholland  and Granny Nelson (a friend of my mothers’, a non relative known to me always as Granny) my only available grandparents, none who were blood related, had already died and I had gone to all of their funerals.  Funerals had been common in my family.  But I couldn’t go to my Aunt Sallie’s funeral, it was held on my 21st birthday.  I remember sitting in a lawn chair in our backyard by myself depressed most of that day.  Now I wish I had said goodbye to her in person, though I have in my mind many times since.

Later in my 20s, when I was 27, my mother died suddenly, apparently from a heart attack.  I believe it was more from a broken heart because of things that have happened in our family the previous six months.  That is another set of memories. My father had found her when he got home from work lying on the floor of their bedroom, where she had laid all day from when she passed out making their bed that morning.  I found out that evening when I returned home from an Amway meeting I had run.  By the time my wife and I drove across the city to the hospital she had died.  I didn’t get to say good bye to her person.

Then in my 30s, when I was 32 my father went into a hospital to have a simple polyp operation just before he turned 65.  I had talked to him on the phone in his hospital room after the operation.  He seemed in good enough shape emotionally and mentally.  He even told me to go home from work to be with my family that night earlier than he ever had.  He didn’t know that my wife and I were separated at the time.

He only left the hospital to move to a nursing home where he died a couple days later.  Diagnosis was a heart attack.  I believe he died of a broken spirit and a lack of the will to keep living because he had a couple years before lost his life partner, who was always there to support him for so many years and then his job and career he had fought so hard to earn and acquire was being taken away from him just because he was about to turn 65.  A forced retirement.  The ending of his chosen journey without him having any control.  I was awaken in the middle of the night to be told that my father had died, by my just recently become ex-father-in-law.  I flew up to Detroit to attend his funeral.  I didn’t get to say goodbye to him while he was alive.

During the next 12 months I lost my greatest job up until that time due to the economy, got divorced, started my never to be successful first company and got myself and my sons out alive, mostly unharmed, from the burning house we were in one night and went on a financial roller coaster ride staying just ahead of my creditors.  Money from my father’s estate changed that somewhat. 

When I was in my 40s at 43, I received a phone at 10:30 at night from my youngest son, Scott, telling me that his older brother, Jeff, had been killed by a drunk driver.  I instantly modified my 3 week solid speaking tour to take a journey that all parents fear to fly to West Palm Beach to see him one last time.  The last time I said goodbye to him is when he was leaving Athens, Georgia after living with, Merry, his step-mother, and I for a few months.  He was leaving to return home in Boynton Beach.  That was the last time I hugged him, said I loved him and said goodbye.  In the funeral parlor I said goodbye one more time.

Finally in my early 50s, when I was 52, my beautiful loving wife and soul mate experienced her first attack from what no two doctors could ever explain or diagnose consistently or apparently correctly.  Tenth months later after many efforts to help her become herself again I came home after being away from her for about an hour for the first time in 4 months, 24 hours a day each day, I found her dead.  She had chosen to end her suffering, her pain and probably the pain she thought her illness was creating for everyone around her, especially my daughter and me.  An hour and 15 minutes before I told her I loved her and said goodbye intending to see her again in about an hour.  I hugged her one more time before they took her away.

Each of these deaths greatly affected my life, my journey.  Each served to tell and remind me that each of our lives is ours to create.  Yes tragic, horrible events happen.  At the same time it is what we choose to do after or because of them that creates our lives.  The first four were strong wake up calls that got my attention but didn’t hold it.

During the ten months that Merry suffered and seemed to relapse into remission or comfort periodically I spent a great deal of time thinking about my life, our life together and what could it become, whether the ideal or the worst happened.

After she made her decision I spent most of my waking hours for months thinking about what the next stage of my life, my new journey, would become.

Within a couple months I chose my new first journey, it would be to South Africa to become part of a Creativity Conference, directed by a creativity friend, Kobus Neethling.  That journey was followed my second trip to Pretoria and Warmsbad, South Africa.  Then came my first and second journeys to Turkey to become part of Halim Ergunalp’s Turkish Creativity Conference.  Then finally after three years of grieving, trying to retake control of my life and grow I left for my 73-Day Wandering Trip completely around the World.

From those journeys have come my general understanding of the powers of chosen creative journeys in my life and what I believe can become the power of them in yours.

What have been some of my learnings?  What may be some of yours?

Here are several of my learnings.

abilities

accomplishments

adventure

beauty

challenges

change

confidence

danger

development

excitement

fun

gambles

laughter later

lost friends

new friends

new knowledge

newly found relatives

pain

persistence

rewards

risk, small to great

self-doubt

skills

stories to learn from

success

taking chances

tools

use of our talents

views into the future

views into the past

Here are brief explanations of these lessons from my wandering journeys.

abilities

My various journeys have provided me with on the spot training that allowed me to use my ever growing list of problem solving and creative thinking abilities and skills.

accomplishments

My journeys have provided me many opportunities to complete several accomplishments from college degrees to traveling to 49 states and 45 countries so far to architectural licenses and various awards for my design work and speaking or storytelling.

adventure

Most of my journeys provided me many adventures from those I wanted, those I didn’t really want and many that were totally unexpected at the time.  My adventures have ranged from climbing mountains, walking famous trails, visiting the homes and studios of many famous architects and designers, touring many famous building monuments.

beauty

The beauty of the world’s vast and varied flora and fauna, the beauty of people everywhere I have traveled, the beauty of the architecture, artwork, graphics and so much more were also gifts my journeys have rewarded me with.  Each morning looking out the sliding glass doors in my dining room out onto my deck at the flowers that I have growing in pots and planters continues to remind me of the Earth’s beauty.  Looking out the windows of the various places I stay adds to those reminders of nature’s beauty.

challenges

Whether arriving at a train station in London at 5:30 am after only 3 hours sleep hoping to head for Stratford-on-Avon to find out that the night information booth man fought to mention that the train left from another station miles away or it was laying in a hospital in Beograde, Yugoslavia recovering from a case of cholera my journeys have provided many challenges.  I have learned often from I believe all of them or could if I studied them.  Also I have collected thousands of significant, mostly funny stories and anecdotes (they’re funny now they weren’t necessarily funny when they happened).

confidence

Though my confidence level varies from moment to moment and situation to situation I know without a doubt that I am far more confident after each new journey, whether I am wandering or taking a guided tour.  Having wandered around 22 countries in Europe or through 16 countries around the World I know I have developed much more confidence in my abilities to deal with day to day problems.

danger

Most of the danger I have gotten into was usually unknown beforehand or before I turned that specific corner, opened that particular door or walked down that individual street at night.  I have learned to deal with whatever happens, whether I have caused it or not.  I continually relearn not to focus on discovering and placing blame but rather understand the cause in order to learn how not to repeat the same wrong action.

development

My life has been one of continuous development, undevelopment  and then redevelopment.  Whether I have taken a chosen journey or simply wandered I generally have opened myself to development in any and all aspects of my life.

excitement

I am not one to get or show excitement easily yet walking up the winding cobblestone streets as the sun was rising in Athens, Greece to reach the Parthenon at sunrise, hitchhiking in the French countryside being will to walk 20 or more miles if I couldn’t actually get a ride or climbing up the wind worn huge stones of the Cheops Pyramid have excited me.  Meeting a friendly person in a foreign country who goes out of their way to help me simply because I am another human being needing help excites me.  Deliberately looking for the beauty in things that I don’t see it in at first glance also excites me.

fun

I have truly learned that fun is a choice.  I choose and have chosen to have fun as much as I can and to create fun even in what seems like a horrible situation.  That lesson I have had to learn many times.  During my 73 Wandering World Tour I approached as many of the bad to horrible situations with the attitude, “if some day I might laugh about this, then why not start laughing a little now?”

gambles

I have not really been a conscious gambler in my life.  Oh yes I have gambled playing pool, shooting snooker or bowling and usually ended up eventually losing all the money I had with me or more.  I rarely have knowingly gambled with my life.  I have gambled with my career and with total strangers possibly liking or helping me,  what seems to be infinite times.  During my journeys I usually discovered afterward that I had gambled somewhere or somehow because I hadn’t thought my action through enough or asked enough questions.  Through winging it and not knowing the actual level of danger is how I have normally gambled in my life.

laughter later

This goes along with the learning that fun is a choice.  I strive to focus on the fact that everything that happens to me will probably possess laughter in the future if I change my perspective and am open to it.

lost friends

Yes leading a life of wandering causes me to lose friends, especially friends who do not truly live by the same values.

new friends

At the same time wandering with an open attitude towards people has helped me make so many, many more new friends wherever I have traveled, whether I am half way around the world or in a local grocery store meeting a cashier or butcher behind the meat counter.

new knowledge

My wandering journeys have and continue to provide me with a constant vast array of new knowledge about almost every subject I can think of.

newly found relatives

Traveling to the homelands of my parents, to states where my relatives have moved to has given me many opportunities to discover relatives I had lost contact with or have never met before.

pain

Pain comes in many forms while I wander.  I continue to try to learn to accept it.  Experience it.  Learn from it.  Then move on hopefully a stronger person because of the pain.  Also I attempt to learn so that I will not repeat the same thing that caused the pain.

persistence

Having long-range goals and being devoted to accomplishing specific goals or tasks along my journeys has provided me with much opportunity to test and further develop persistence as one of my strongest learned skills.

rewards

My days are filled with so many rewards from my journeys. I could fill volumes with examples from the scenes I have viewed, the animals I have seen, the kindnesses I have experienced and received, the expanding love I feel for life and people in general.

risk, small to great

My journeys have provided me many opportunities to risk, from small to great.  I have learned to stretch my risk limits many times, enabling me to take what I would have previously considered a greater risk than I was then willing to take.

self-doubt

Though I have always fought with great self-doubt, my wanderings and journeys have helped me learn to trust myself, to believe in myself and accept myself.

skills

Each time I have had to do something knew during my wanderings I have gained new skills, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not.

stories to learn from

Every day I have traveled has provided me with stores to learn from.  Some days have provided me with many different stories.

success

Arriving at my destination.  Completing a daily travel challenge: finding the train station, the church, the historic site.  These each have provided me with many chances for success.

taking chances

Though I have seldom truly been a person to take chances my wanderings have provided me many examples to learn from that I can discover that I can learn to take larger and larger chances and have less and less fear of failure.

tools

My wanderings have allowed me to strengthen tools and develop new ones nearly every time I have set foot our of my front door.

use of our talents

Looking back on past wanderings I have often discovered many examples of when I used my talents.  Frequently I became cognizant of talents I didn’t know I had.

views into the future

Ever focusing on my destinations, whether on the horizon I could see or a map, I have developed a general attitude about focusing on or looking into the future with hope.

views into the past

Whether climbing a pyramid, walking an ancient street in Pompeii, or walking around Uluru, the great rock in the outback of Australia I have gained a great reverence for viewing into the past.

These are some of my learnings and samples of what they have given me.

What about the learnings you have from your journeys, wanderings, vacations or tours?

You may have had many to most and more of the same learnings I have.  Jot down some examples from your life.  Perhaps you have some photo albums, trays of 35mm slides or shelves with curios and souvenirs that you can look to help remind you of many of your learnings and lessons.

Next time you choose to travel make a list of the types of learnings you would like to experience.  Also make a list of types of challenges you want to test yourself with during your travel.

Setting goals, whether general or very detailed, is very helpful in reinforcing the value of any traveling we do.  You may want to, if you don’t already, begin keeping a journal with your daily thoughts, drawings and sketches and books with postcards, exhibit tickets, train or bus coupons.  Each of these can make remembering the total beauty of your travels so much easier and richer.