Full Circle

We all have those identifying moments or events that occur in our lives that profoundly influence and shape our paths forward. Though these can be either positive or negative, they are always very profound and resonate deep within. If I were to rank the top 7 of these events that have shaped my path thus far, an incident back in 1991 would be one of them. Let me set the stage...

By the time I got to 1989, having numbly crawled through the '80s in the aftermath of losing my parents, I was desperate for a change. I so wanted to run away from all the pain, confusion, loneliness and depression. It got to the point where every road I drove in and around Toronto had memories of my mom and dad. Their ghosts were everywhere and I just couldn't break free. A job opportunity from a good friend opened up in Ottawa, and I jumped at it. Fresh roads awaited me in a new city. The job, was with Bell Northern Research - later to become Nortel Networks. I joined, what I later found out, a super group of elite software designers. This group prided itself on unprecedented development and loved to put the other software areas to shame. They were cocky and very, very good. This is the culture I entered in January, 1990. As those that know me, I have never been elite at anything :-) I was, at best, an average software developer and certainly not in this league. But I am my father's son and pride is paramount, so I rolled up my sleeves and worked my a$$ off. I worked on most weekends in 1990, taking midnight labshifts, working late into the weekday evenings, trying to raise my level to this elite level. I even got pneumonia 10 months later... It was a very difficult year and what made it worse was that I still hadn't resolved all the pain inside from the events of the 80s. You see you can change cities, but you still bring all your inner baggage with you... I was so hurting, so lost and terrified of failing.

This brings us to the defining moment... in February, 1991 - 13 months after arriving to my new life. I had just turned 30 and the week following, I was called in to see my manager and told that I just can't cut it. I'm not good enough and dragging the group down. If this group is going to be elite, I can't be part of it. I had failed.... miserably. I was so devastated, so numb.

It affected me for the years to come, despite working through many of the issues through the 90s... I felt like I had to apologize to everyone for just taking up space - it did get that bad. Thank god for therapy and good therapists... Thank god for good friends who understand. I have worked through this issue. But as many will tell you, issues like this never really leave you, rather you defuse it and learn to become friends with it (if that makes sense). I have become friends with my sense of failure. I understand it and have learned and grown from it.

Now... with that long meandering prologue, we fast forward to yesterday afternoon... where I am a project manager for a successful hi-tech company, sitting across the desk from a project team member who, despite working his a$$ off and a real nice guy, is slowing down the project. I have to cut him and this is very clear to me. I have to do my job. And I hate every single second of this, as you can well imagine..... Life has come full circle on me.