8/25/20
I wrote the draft below on leaving the United States Military Academy before I even knew I was doing so. Reading it now, I see that there is so much that has changed in my way of thinking. At first, my instinct is to be appalled by some of my vocabulary and viewpoints on the big questions in life.
However, something I still believe is that there is power in changing your mind, and I want to explore that first. Redirection is not a weakness but a strength. If you believe that, expectations and past dreams weigh on you less, because you realize there is no shame in following your gut.
In fact, all of us are changing every second, whether we realize it or not. New experiences and physiological changes make your mind and body behave differently, but we have an illusion of being constant due to pattern matching in our consciousness. In the brain, neurogenesis occurs every day, meaning even the cells that make up your brain are regularly altered. Can you really say you are the same person that you were in your childhood? How about two years ago? The answers to those are clear to me. I'm not the same person who stole those dinosaur action figures in preschool and I'm not the same person I was in high school (sheeeesh, who wants to be anyway?). It's harder, though, to think that you aren't the you that went to bed last night. You had a handful of experiences today that took you in a step towards who you will become in the future. Yes, these changes are small, but they are the very same that add up to make you cringe at those pictures with your old hair.
When I first thought of it this way, my instinct was to fear this change. I've come to realize, though, that impermanence is the only sure thing in life. Everything in the universe changes and so too do the circumstances of our lives.
Consider a rope made of various materials. As you look down it, it is part silk, part nylon, and part twine. Imagine a knot formed at the top, but as you feed it through it travels down the line. Is that knot of twine the same one that you formed in silk? We would think yes, because we recognize the pattern and have observed it traveling. It's similar in nature; there are patterns but everything changes.
It's tough but important to stop fearing this nonstop change. When you fully embrace the nature of impermanence as it applies to you and your environment, it's empowering and leads to less anxiety and hence a more fulfilled way of living. Anxiety is a natural human reaction. It serves to learn from the past and plan for the future. It's a sort of scanner looking for potential problems or disturbances to wellness. However, sometimes it can work against itself and cause you to overlook beauty and wellness that already exists now. Our goal is embracing impermanence is to rid ourselves of that unneeded stress.
In sum, impermanence is the only constant. It will always be there, and making friends with it is powerful. It makes you realize that changing your mind is a superpower, and lessens some anxiety that comes from change.
The following passage is kinda like those old embarrassing pictures. It's a little more of a personal exploration and less one on the philosophies of life that are applicable to everyone. But, I hope there is still value to be gained from my journey and experience.
11/21/19
Leaving West Point
As I grew up, my experiences fueled my interests. My interests fed into my goals which shaped my decisions. The decision to come to the United States Military Academy was based on challenging myself, becoming a better version of myself, helping others, becoming a more experienced leader, and getting a world class education without the world class price tag. I fully knew that I could fall in love with the army, or I could grow to dissociate with it as the path for me. Either way, I was confident that I would step in the right direction in the areas I mentioned. I did. As I come closer to entering the working world, I’m deciding that a different path will be better for me, and I want to talk about why.
At West Point, there is a stigma around leaving. It’s as if leaving is the most anti-patriotic thing you can do. There’s a feeling that it’s synonymous with giving up on “the answer,” your teammates, your country, and yourself. But, West Point is not “the answer,” and I am certainly not giving up on my goals. Instead, I’m readjusting in a way that is going to help me live a version of my life truer to myself. Yes, West Point can be a lock-in for going to business school at age 28, getting a well-paying job, and being well-respected by most Americans, but that doesn’t mean it will make me successful after or on the way there.
The definition of success can only be defined by the person pursuing it. Does success lie in making a lot of money? Does it come from achieving distinction or popularity, as Google Dictionary says? Maybe. For me, success is simplified to happiness. Consider a beach bum. He values experiencing new things, traveling, meeting new people every day, and spreading love and good energy. He’s happy as a clam doing that. Do you really have the guts to call him unsuccessful? If you did, I would respectfully disagree, and tell you to look at his smile for evidence. It validates his life as valuable and worth living. While happiness is a broad goal, it allows me to focus more on noticing what truly makes me happy and following up by pursuing more of that and less of everything else. We all have a finite amount of resources, be it time, energy, or something else, and I’ve found the 80/20 rule to be true here. Applied to happiness, it’s the idea that the 20% of the things you do produce 80% of your happiness. Recognizing the areas of the 20% can help you to double down on what matters.
Passion is in my 20% and leads to gratifying work. It leads to being satisfied with the use of my time. I’ve heard arguments that passion is overrated, or that the real nobility lies in succumbing to the beat down that life gives you, because that’s just how it is. OK, maybe that wasn’t their exact terminology, but you know what I mean. It justifies the cycle of wake up, dread the day, fight through it, work because you have to, and get back to your bed at the end of the day, having survived. I refuse to agree with that being the way to live. As long as I’m alive, I’ll be chasing the Monday where I jump out of bed and I’m genuinely excited to “work.”
I’ve heard people say that if I admit that being here has helped me in so may ways, leaving would be naive because I can improve even more over the next 7 years. I recognize the power of discipline in that way. Discipline is a powerful skill when applied to the right things. But applying it to my decision to leave is arbitrary. That’s like saying, “you know that discipline and cardio is good for you, so why don’t you run 10 miles every single morning instead of sleeping in? In a few months you’ll be a better person.” 1) There are more ways to be better, like taking that sleep that may be important to your mental health, and 2) we don’t do that (some people do) because the benefit doesn’t outweigh the opportunity cost. Anyway, I’m really happy with who I am. I’ll continue to improve, too, no matter what track I’m on. If I were to stay in the army and get out at age 28, it’s very possible that I would be making more money and be a better leader, speaker, etc. But would I be happier? Could be. I could find halfway through that I love this career and the soldiers. But speculating on these possibilities is a moot point to me.
All we can ever do is act on the information in front of us and make the best decision we can. The funny thing about this is that we’ll never know what would’ve happened with the other outcome. To me, trying to think about “what if” is not valuable to making the decision itself. What if going to West Point results in a happier 30 year old Jack? What if I love diffusing bombs? What if I hate living in New York City? What if I get hit by a bus in three years? IT DOESN’T MATTER. Right now, I have an idea of what fires me up and what pulls me away from happiness, and that’s all I can or should act on. The army itself, at the end of the day, does not contribute to my happiness. Everyone has different values. Just tonight I talked to a cadet who is dreading going home to be with his family, which is a foreign idea to me.
Jocko Willink says that the mentality of “never quit” is flawed. While it can certainly be the best way to get through challenging times like Basic Training, it doesn’t apply directly to all other situations in life. As Jocko says, when if you try something and it is just not working, you need to step back, assess, and see if there is another way to do it.
With that said, I have no regrets about coming to West Point. The two years have provided me with the value that the college years are meant to supply. I learned a lot about myself, increased my discipline, and chiseled my beliefs. The time taught me about what really sucks in life and what doesn’t, and it taught me about what I value. Free time spent at West Point allowed me to find and explore some of the passions you can read about in my writing. Additionally, I do see immense value in leadership and helping others, ideals that are clearly put to good use in the army. It’s not the only place where I can derive happiness from these things. They’re more common than that. Doing something for someone else is possible every single day. There’s a person in front of you in line--buy him coffee. There’s your coworker, heading into the building--go catch up and tell her something you admire about her. Leadership, too. You don’t need to have a position on paper to influence everyone around you.
Life is too long to be unhappy. What do I mean by that? There are always excuses to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. 80 years of life makes us think that we can continuously use this way of thinking to push off where we really want to be. It justifies working 16 hours a day at a less than exciting job so that you can have a yacht at 65. I don't think that's a way to live. I am an advocate of saving and good financial practices, but taking a job for 60k a year that you love waking up for sounds much better than making 90k in a position that you despise. There is always a way, in my opinion, to plan for the future while optimizing each day at the same time. There is a happy medium.
I grew up with West Point on my mind, and it will always be so special to me. It contributed tremendously to who I am to day, and after my time here, I’m certainly one step closer to being successful in my eyes. Who knows if I would be if I did two years at any other institution? It’s not valuable to even think about that. It is valuable to know that I’m one step closer to jumping out of bed on a Monday as if it were a Saturday.
- Jack
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