Who Says We Can't We Have It All?

You can be anything you want to be...fireman, astronaut, professional baseball player, cowboy, or President...anything. Because, in America (substitute your country), you can have everything if you work hard for it.

Did someone tell you something similar to that when you were a child?

So, when did it change? When did you decide that...

you must pick and choose carefully among your options because you really can't have it all?

It's funny (strange, not ha-ha) how the messages of innocence and hope disappear as we grow older. By the time we have children, businesses, and...responsibilities (don't you hate that word!), we're fully aware that we can't have everything.

Everybody says so. Sound wisdom tells us that we must be cautious, frugal and somber in our choices. Responsible...

But when we look at those role models that we admire, they place no such limitations on themselves.

While we're busy making a buck and choosing what we really want and discarding the "unrealistic" aspirations, they're filling their plate with passionate options.

Me? I learned early

Ball player?! Come on...get real!

My passion was becoming a professional baseball player. I was pretty good, but certainly not professional quality. But I still harbored the aspiration until I was 48 and paunchy. Old dreams die hard.

I just couldn't shake the idea that I could have gone pro.

(Yes, I know that's ridiculous, but I played hard until I was 48 in what I called, "old man baseball" with a bunch of ex-college, pros, and people like me - wannabes. I'd still be playing except the cost of gauze to bind my wounds and Ben Gay to soothe my muscles became a budget concern...)

Objectively, I know this is just revisionist history.

When I was 18, I was playing in a semi-pro league. I had a day job, a girlfriend, and no real aspiration. I'd dropped out of (asked to leave, actually) college, and had very little faith in my ability as a player or as anything else.

In my final game though, I pitched against a Major League pitcher's highly-scouted son. And I smoked him. As I walked to the dugout in the last inning (I'd thrown all strikes and held the other team to 1 hit) I heard the Major Leaguer say, "Wow! Who is this guy? Where'd he come from?"

I went home smiling, iced my arm, and folded up my uniform and put it away, never to look at it again. In just a couple of days, I knew I would be on a bus to the Lackland Air Force base for basic training because my girlfriend and I were going to get married...

You can't have it all, right? Marriage and baseball didn't mix.

By then, I'd learned that having it all wasn't a possibility for me. I could have a little, but just enough. And only my share. Even though I wanted it all.

As my friend, Katherine the artist said, I learned to settle for...

For the next 30 years, I settled.

When my wife and I moved to this beautiful Paradise in the woods, we thought we'd gotten something special. And we had. So why did we feel a little regret about leaving the city? And our friends?

To make us feel good about the geographic change, we tried very hard to dislike the city. Yet, every visit to Atlanta rewarded us with the smiling faces of good friends, good food and fun - all the stuff we liked most about Atlanta.

Thursday, two blocks from my rented house, I stopped at The Flying Biscuit - the kind of quirky in-town restaurant that only a big city will support - and picked up a biscuit (with apple butter) and a large coffee. I sat at the counter and watched friendly neighborhood people come and go.

For two years now, I've lived in this part of Atlanta with my good friend and roommate when I'm not flying, or living at home in the woods with my beautiful wife.

This is MY neighborhood too.

And it struck me...

• I've got a great independent worklife with a good contract, flexibility, and interesting and challenging tasks.
• I've got an excellent Internet business that continues to grow and teaches me new things every day.
• I've made really good friends in Atlanta, Seattle and Dallas, as well as all of my new friends online.
• I've got a loving and supportive wife and family.
• And I have the best of both living situations, country and city.

I don't need to dislike one because I have the other.

Truth is...I have it all. Everything I want. I just didn't know what it was until I learned how to look at it.

Having it all seems like such a selfish aspiration. But the willingness to entertain the idea that you can have it all is a gift that I hope I can give to my kids and anyone else who will listen. Now, that I've learned it, I'll take it to the grave with me.

Have it all? Why not! Like they said in the Army a few years ago,

"Be All You Can Be..."

Having it all seems like such a selfish aspiration. But the willingness to entertain the idea that you can is a gift that I want to give my children and anyone else who will listen. It's also a belief that I want to take to the grave with me.

Do you believe you can have it all? Do you even want it - let's hear it?

Comments

[Professor]

Yes David:

You're speaking to me in many respects. I've yet to reside on my own estate replete with organic farms and orchards, springs and lakes, hills and valleys. But it's on my agenda. Preferably one in North Georgia and another in Western Australia.

Having it all means nothing until you come to the point of being happy and hopeful from where you are right now. You've got it; love it all. Here and now does my future manifest.

Peace and prosperity,
Professor

P.S. You'll appreciate Denzel Washington's new book, "A Hand to Guide Me," a great collection of powerful individuals' elemental rites-of-passage stories; several happen to be major league ball players.

[Stephen Voight]

Thank-You David,
I never know exactly what I need to hear but I always know the minute I hear it,... it is exactly what I needed.
Stephen