Anonymous 5m 1,214
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
Who would have known that a little pizza boy could have gotten to the top of an international pizza company. But as a wise man once said it’s not all about the destination, part of the fun is in the journey. I think that man didn’t have as a bumpy a journey as I had, if he did I’m sure he wouldn’t have said that. But I learned the hard truth.
Anyway its custom to start a story at the beginning which I apparently didn’t do, but I guess that’s what skipping school and 4 years as a pizza delivery guy will get you. At the beginning I wasn’t such a bad boy, I liked to study, read books, and do my work, but something changed when I reached thirteen years of age. Some people say it was puberty but I think it was much more than that. My reading habit didn’t die down when I hit the curious age, actually it pretty much intensified. I started reading some really interesting books about power, manipulative people and what they did to get that power, the problems with the system and a lot more books like that.
Before I knew it, while my friends were fueling around, playing little games and such I started to rebel against them, and against the school system. It was like I was angry, but not angry at them, I was angry because they accepted what to me at the time seemed like nonsense. I couldn’t stand it, I was too smart, to clever for the things they were teaching us at school, or at least I liked to think so. I aced all my exams with very little effort and I liked doing it, I liked the praise I received when I would get an A. But it got really old really fast. I grew numb to the praise, like when something good happens all the time what is there to distinguish it from the bad or the normal. I couldn’t stand it, and the one thing that was keeping me in class was gone, and with it so was I. I started skipping class, a lot, but nevertheless I continued to gain excellent marks.
By the age of 17 it started getting out of hand, my teachers were trying to calm me down, keep me in check, but I was too wild for that, I couldn’t even stand the idea of conforming to their narrow minded failing education system. It had failed too many people.
On career day I remember, three people showed up to motivate us, and to show us what fruit the growing three that is the future would bring if we continued down the path of the narrow-minded and mind numbing teachings of the school. I heard each and of them speak their mind and tell their story, but not one of those stories seemed true. It seemed like they were telling the stories to themselves to encourage themselves to continue working their meaningless, or what seemed to me at the time meaningless, jobs. I had it in my mind that I was not going to become one of those things, I was not going to become a 9 to 5 worker bee, working to get my boss more money, I was not going to live out the days of my life like that.
I started skipping even more of school but I didn’t waste the time. I started reading even more books, gaining even more knowledge, motivated by the idea of not conforming to the standards of the mass, and scared of being forced to join it. I was studying restlessly. I can remember one time I even fell asleep inside, with my face pushed down against a 500 page book on the strategy of economics.
But don’t get me wrong I did party too, oh boy did I party, I wasn’t the most popular guy in school but I did good for myself. Everything seemed to be going well. I was walking along the path that I had paved for myself, I even got the most beautiful girlfriend, my teachers stopped pestering me about my attendance, and I had a great family that loved me. I even started to calm down, I wasn’t so angry all the time.
It’s strange how in moments of great happiness, tragedy seems to strike out of nowhere. At least that’s what happened to me. On a cold October night I got the news about my mom and dad. They had an awful car accident and it didn’t look good for ether of them. They kept on fighting, and fighting to stay alive, for a month they managed to keep that heart monitor beeping, but soon after they both passed. That was the most pain that I had ever felt in my life. I felt suicidal after that.
For a year until I finished school I didn’t even talk. I couldn’t. I was but a mere shadow of my former self, where once my soul and my passion to succeed governed, now I had just an empty feeling. The pain, anger and rage soon filed it making me a monster. My girlfriend left me, and I got thrown into foster care for about a month. I couldn’t stay there. I got a job as a pizza boy and for four years I just wasted away my life delivering pizzas.
But one day, on a chance encounter I met my old girlfriend, she had gotten a job in a top notch fashion designer. She seemed so happy and fulfilled, we went to get coffee together and we started talking. She told me she was sorry that she left me but she couldn’t help it, she had gotten afraid of me and the way I was behaving. That night after years I took a good hard look at myself and didn’t like what I saw. I couldn’t stand what I had become. The person I least wanted to be suddenly was staring at me back in the mirror. It was amazing I couldn’t believe what had happened to me.
From that day on I decided to take what I wanted, to fulfill myself and my dreams. A short time after that we started going out again. I started to move up in the pizza business and got a job as an executive sales manager. After that I got a couple more promotions and I found myself at the top of the ladder, I got to be the boss of my own company. It was amazing and I owed it all to my girlfriend and soon-to-be beautiful wife. If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have taken that long look in the mirror and I wouldn’t have seen that person, that distorted image of myself.
In the end all I needed to do was have the courage to see what was going on around me. What was happening to me , not just to cut myself off. From then on I decided to continue down the path of intense realism, with my wife, and live life to the fullest.
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