The Light Burns Bright

From the time we are young children we are consistently encouraged to start thinking about what we want to do for the rest of our lives.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

This may be the most common question a child hears growing up. Constantly being pressured to think about how they will mold and fit into society, rather than being encouraged to explore life and their passions, we are pushed in one direction or another with never any time to really just stop and think for ourselves. To find ourselves.

For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to help. To help people, help the world, to just be of some kind of aid. My earliest childhood ambition was to be a veterinarian and that stayed consistent until about the time I was in middle school and then I wanted to join the military and be apart of the special forces and fight for America and help rid the world of the "bad" people. Then, shortly there after, I became fascinated with the brain and psychology and so I became very interested in the field and had my heart set on being a psychologist - yet another way I could help people. Then my sophomore year of high school E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G I once knew changed. Dad was diagnosed with cancer and my life turned upside down. Our family was turned inside out and spun in every direction possible. I was lost. It stayed this way for many, many years. If it were not for wrestling, my coaches, and my team I truly don't think I would have made it through - they were the best support system anyone could have ever asked for. Between wrestling and dad being sick I became acutely aware of how important health is and the food we ingest and the manner in which we take care of our bodies. This was all something I had to learn on my own - our family was not in the slightest bit health conscious, we were very much the standard American family. My goal to study psychology stayed in place until my freshman year of college and that's when I realized that though I loved the topic and the studies - and I still do - it was not a career path that would make me happy. I still wanted to help people but I wasn't sure how and in what way. I was training consistently at the time at a local gym and was working out regularly and decided that I would much rather continue taking care of myself, be an athlete, and use my mode of success as an athlete as a platform to help educate those on health and fitness. I spent a great deal of time being lost, unsure, and just plain out confused over the years. I knew early on how big of a scam our American education system is but also knew that there wasn't much I could do without it.

At the end of my freshman year in college we received the devastating news that my fathers cancer had returned and that it had taken a hold in his bones. Something that cannot be defeated. Dad opted to stop his treatments and I can't express how terrifyingly fast that devastating disease can take over someone. Again, our family was destroyed. After dad passed I took several years out of school - I was lost and had no direction. I was angry at the world. I was working full time in a nice restaurant - making good money, racking up debt, and finally getting to explore life. I knew I still wanted to study health and fitness and eventually got back into school studying nutrition and then had a few bum professors and changed my focus to physical therapy. After a few semesters of doing that I was growing tired of the mundane class work, the waiting list for the program, and I was becoming even more weary of the sickening, monotonous work of the hospitality industry. Don't get me wrong, I actually do enjoy the industry and giving customer service and making people happy but I LOATHE giving people soda and shitty food. I am contributing to the epidemic that's killing our species - obesity. Sedentary lifestyle. Laziness. Lack of care. It's sickening and I hate embracing it by working in the industry that feeds those poor souls their plates of sloppy unhappiness.

One day a guy offered me a job doing commercial insurance, I took the offer, got my 2-20 insurance license and worked in that industry for a few years and I again quickly learned that was not for me. The corporate lifestyle is an evil monster that sucks the life out of you and gives zero fucks about your well-being.

Back to square one. What to do with my life. I got myself back into school, attended a major university and have been studying exercise science and nutrition ever since. Something that truly makes me happy and truly will allow me to help others and make a difference in this world.

So what am I getting at?

Now so, more than ever, the light at the end of the tunnel isn't just peaking through - it's blasting through like a solar flare off the sun.

I told myself when I made this move out to Colorado that I would no longer be working in the hospitality industry by the years end.

Now, more so than ever, that dream and the goal is on the horizon to becoming reality and I couldn't be more happy.

I have been transforming my life from the inside out over the last year and though there is much more I have accomplished and conquered that I would like to write about - I'm tired and needed to write something and over everything else - this is it.

My dream of helping others better their lives through exercise and food education is so close I can taste it and I'm so close to being out of the hospitality industry I can barely sleep at night. I dread going to bed and having to wake up and knowing that I'll be serving sodas and highly processed foods to people. However, with all of that being said, the struggle, the heart ache, the confusion, and every other obstacle over the last 12 years has all been worth it because it has lead me to this very moment in this exact place and for that, I wouldn't change it for the world.

I can honestly say for the first time, for longer than I care to remember, I'm genuinely happy.