Life lessons chapter #1 restarting my life

May 07, 2026

re:starting my life journey began in 2003

back story — as a 50 something adult, i have minimal understanding of the basic rules of writing — grammar, punctuation and all the so called writing skills. i say so what, it doesn't matter because i can express myself in a short, simple way and i’ll bet/hope that most of the people who read this will understand both my message and how i feel by the tone i use to express my self.

what happened — condensed version

back in 2003 i was overwhelmed with my life circumstances, i could not cope emotionally. being over whelmed emotionally i proceeded to take 95% of the contents out of my home and put on the street in the front of where i lived — i dumped at least 40k work personal belongings. I rented a self storage for the remaining items. I slept in my car that night and found a homeless shelter to stay at for the next two weeks. note — my mother lived just down the street from the homeless shelter — several years of not having any relationship with my mother or family made this a “i will do this on my own — i will figure this out kind of moment.” on the bright side…. because i was not hungry, cold and had a safe and warm place to sleep i did not have any worries or fear of the future.

my non relationship with my parents was brought on by several big picture factors.

i had deep seeded anger, resentments and disappointments at my father and mother for what I perceived at that time to be “them dropping out of being parents.” what does dropping out of being parents mean? — growing up and going through elementary, middle and high school i was rarely asked by my parents about my home work assignment, how school was going, progress reports or report cards, etc. hence my overall academic skills and aptitude are at a relatively low level — probably mid grammar school level. where this lack of education reared its ugly head — i worked my way up the employment ladder in early adulthood from your basic factory worker to executive level position in the action sports magazine publishing and bicycle industry product development, international importing exporting and sports marketing. major complications showed up when i lacked the academic aptitude to perform all the job functions — as a result my performance suffered dramatically and in the end i was not competent and doing the job that i was hired to do. needless to say i floated from job to job, current career to new career decade after decade.

things that i didn't understand until i sought help from professional personal development specialist: