Mornings like this I am acutely aware that I am not psychologically prepared to be a Dad. This is, of course, a shame because I have a 4 month old daughter. For me, having a kid seems to have ripped asunder my ability to bluff. I've spent a lot of my life pushing envelopes, gambling and taking risks.... all on the premise that I can handle the consequences. What I am feeling now is that all of this risk appetite was served in an absence of proper risk assessment. All of a sudden, the stakes are higher and I'm feeling like what I really need to do is get things right as opposed to push my luck. But when you've been bluffing for as long as I have, this is much easier said than done.
I'm spending a lot of time examining my own patterns out fear of a systemic flaw in how I go about living. The potential catastrophe that continuing on in the same old manner might cause has me re-examining my entire life to date - successes, failures, ethically questionable decisions (and worse). And I don't particularly like what I am seeing.
Somehow, I fantasize, if I had known that these days of reckoning were coming, I would have straightened up and flown right more often. I would have taken less risks, taken on less debt, treated people differently, shown more integrity under duress, etc., etc. In short, I would have been somebody else.... a better somebody else. These are the thoughts I have as I wake from a relatively sleepless night and push myself onto the train in the morning to go meet my day.
I know its out of balance. After all, I've got a good job, I've got the respect of at least some of my peers, I've got a decent financial plan, even if my income to debt ratio doesn't raise comparisons to Warren Buffet. I'm a work in progress, and I am progressing. But that doesn't stop me from waking up in the morning with a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I've created something of a monster and that monster is now coming after me and the ones I love the most. How to undo the past?
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