Second Thoughts

It's natural for one to question where he is at a certain point in time. It means there is a need to get your bearings, that one may have strayed and reorienting is in order. I'm just thankful that I'm not doing this second-guessing while, say, halfway up a rock face with no other climbing tools aside from my hands. 

I am in the process of achieving mastery in two fields: web development and martial arts. I have been training with my teacher once a week for almost a year now, and I have been training almost everyday. There are a score of drills that we have to practice and I have improved on them all so far, right now I am focusing on refining my understanding and execution of the principles of the style. For web development, I took time to study IT two years ago; I then spent a humbling eight months casting about for any company willing to hire me. After an additional five months of company training, I was made part of a development team maintaining the in-office resource management system. After five months, I was then put into a new project that entailed more advanced technology.

The above seems like such a short paragraph, now that I am looking at it. It doesn't even begin to cover the whole range of my experience - from raised hopes to dashed expectations to minor frustrations to big problems. I've found my performance lacking at times, for both of the things I'm trying to master. Other times I have been completely over my head. I've been lazy and paid the price, and I've also made mistakes that I didn't pay for. There's been good luck and bad luck in equal measures. 

I've had a senior in the style I practice not like me, but eventually he was able to get over it; I've had to fight office politics at my workplace, to not what I'd call a victory but at least I avoided a worse outcome. There's a lot that's been done and learned and discovered in these past three years, and there will be many more. But I'm scared that this might end up a failure. There are no signposts to the future after all, and I've already failed at a previous endeavor that I'd gone into with great energy - only to end it with tears and regret. I am unsure if I am on the best path for me; I am unsure if I am on a path at all.

I am not being guided by some Presence on high. I only have myself to rely on, with all the irrationality that humans are known for. The stakes grow higher every year, pretty soon I will have no one else to support me. I'm not rich, I have no power, and I worry about my family and about starting a family. Somehow, "going with the flow" isn't a feasible stategy anymore. Would that I end up similarly to Malcolm Gladwell, whose career does seem like that of a late bloomer. But there's no guarantee, is there?