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Chasing our purpose in life

You have no purpose, Dominick

It’s a cold October of 1997 in Newark, Delaware. When I start the engine to my 1982 Volkswagon Quantum, it struggles a bit to get moving. I’ve been kicked out of the house by my father again and he was on an exceptional tirade this time so I know I’ve got a few weeks ahead of me before I can serve my obligatory month in my car and then beg to be permitted back in the house where I have the luxury of paying rent, having no food to eat and working 20+ hours a week while trying to finish High School. I really could have used my mother’s child support checks she sent to my Father but he didn’t care, he had his cocaine money. My father believed half my paychecks from my job belonged to him. Getting kicked out as much as I did and learning to survive on my own at 17 for months at a time sucked ass but I do not regret it. Not at all. At least I was able to keep my money I worked my ass off for.

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This week I continue my 4-part series about Purpose. This week I discuss how my feelings of worthlessness developed during my High School and early military career. I talk about what I found worked to elevate me and what stupid actions tossed me back on my face. Information in this series will be used heavily while I figure out what to edit into my first book. I’m excited about how routine this is becoming.

Well Trainwrecks, I had my car. My piece of shit 82’ Volkswagon had a leaky rear main seal which meant I burnt blue smoke everywhere I drove and went through tons of oil. It shook because it often misfired on one cylinder, had four mismatched tires and a bunch of Austin Powers decals all over the windows I took from the movie theatre I worked at, Regal Cinemas in People’s Plaza Newark, Delaware.

I paid $500 for that car and I never registered it. I would park at the University of Delaware where my buddy Ken was partying his way outta college and I would rack up at least a hundred dollars a weekend in parking tickets. After a few months of living in my car I couldn’t afford to buy oil anymore. I began stealing used oil from a recycle tank at an oil change place and I got caught by a security guard on patrol. I quickly found another place to steal oil but got chased off by an employee within a month. I felt like the only thing keeping me going was keeping this car going so I at least had a place to live and no one could take away from me. I knew my car was falling apart and I couldn’t afford another one. I could barely afford to eat while attending High School and scraping by with my shit wage job. That day I cried for over an hour in the grocery store parking lot before I reached into the wiring in my dashboard and just disconnected the low oil indicator and buzzer wiring. About a week later (if even that long), the engine gave up right there in front of the Newark, DE Chrysler plant my stepdad used to work at. It took a few hours for me to get ahold of someone to come pick me up as cell phones weren’t really a thing.

With some help from friends as well as teachers and the family of friends I toughed out the final stretch of High School and graduated with a low C average. I rode the public bus for over an hour in the morning to get to my job. I gave people gas money and sometimes found myself in crappy but necessary travel situations But I GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL!!! I mean I did it! I was already enlisted in the delayed entry program for the Air Force by the time I graduated (why not, I was already an outcast?) and I was gonna rock out my summer as best as I could before I left for Basic training. I was told I couldn’t smoke Pot 30 days prior to my enlistment so after I partied like a scared, broke 18 year old kid I exercised discipline and got it all out of my system. I was 140 lbs soaking wet, malnourished had NO idea what was even remotely going on in the real world. I had no idea what I needed to do to make myself someone different than who I currently was. I swore one day I would look in the mirror and see someone I wasn’t ashamed to look at. In High School I was ashamed of my awkward skeletal frame and the fact I was an easy target for bullies who really didn’t know any other way to act. Neither did I for that matter, I look back and realize I probably caused a great deal of my own grief simply because I did not know how to act properly in social situations.

While growing up I spent time in and out of public institutions and special programs because of my overreactive and sometimes violent nature. I spent several years in-patient and out-patient at Terry Psychiatric Center in New Castle, Delaware until I was an adolescent and then later several stints at the Rockford Psychiatric Center in Newark, Delaware. I spent years in and out of Psychiatric centers because I was a very confused and angry young man. From the very first year I attended, I changed schools almost every single year and moved about every two years. If I wasn’t moving schools I was busy acting like an Asshole and getting expelled from them. What can I say, the answer has ALWAYS been to drug me up and when I wasn’t heavily medicated I would beg for attention and love in just about every unacceptable way that I could come up with.

Trainwrecks if you feel you are affected by awkwardness, a failure to accomplish your goals and a general feeling of anxiety I want you to know you are perfectly normal. If you have reached a point of frustration or just want to know more about your potential to be who you really want to be and would like to explore your options in modifying your behavior through a professional coaching program, contact me for a free consultation. We will not only address what you feel your shortcomings may be, but identify one very important thing: who YOU are according to YOU! Please contact me via DJBeautifulTrainwreck@gmail.com for a free consultation and we will explore how we can closer align your lifestyle to your ideal self.

Who YOU really are!

When I joined the military I knew I would be going far away from the life I had been living. I would be travelling to Texas for Basic Training at a minimum which was too far for any of my family to find me so I felt resolute in my choice to leave Delaware and find my path in the Air Force. I was finally 18, I graduated High School and I was on my way to becoming “someone.” I would day dream about earning that beautiful amazing Associate’s Degree and I was going to get in good shape and buy a really nice car and get a really hot girlfriend. I mean, my plan was perfect and there was no way anything or anyone would ever make me feel like I’m not good enough again. The Air Force got me when I saw the video of the guys armed with M16s riding ATVs through foot high rivers and hiking up a mountain to go blow something up or whatever really cool staged BS was in that video. I was going to be the most amazing troop in the world and once I earned that beret, I would finally be “someone.”

A few months later I found myself a graduate of Basic Training and learning how to fire a belt-fed, crew-served machine gun. We would PT in the morning before the sun came up. We would arrive at our training areas not long after and return to our barracks as the sun was beginning to set. We learned how to read a map and compass, we learned how to set up field radios, fire grenade launchers and set up a hasty defensive fighting position. We learned to communicate and work together. I learned to channel my temperament. I learned how to focus and breathe and to work under pressure. I was incredibly young and immature and looking back I don’t know how I possibly made it through training, as growing up I knew NOTHING about the military or even guns for that matter.

I had very few actual friends in High School so it took me quite a while to figure out how to act around others. The Military encouraged you to be HUAH! So like many other young men with piss poor examples of how to act “like a man,” I assumed I was always supposed to be super macho and tough-guy. I made a lot of assumptions about how to impress women and needless to say, I made a complete fool of myself on so many occasions I could write a book based solely on how to have extremely low self-esteem and often act like an Idiot in social situations – By Dominick Juliano. I realize now it was because of the social conditioning and negativity I grew up around and simply “got used to.” But back then, Damn that really dragged my whole world along the negativity train. When I first joined the military (and later when I became a pill addict) I was a whiner and a complainer. Oh, no doubt I would physically meet expectations and there was never a question if I could perform during any operation but I’m going to be honest, I thought whiners and complainers were looked up to for bringing up valid points. I was COMPLETELY wrong, asking a legitimate question about a legitimate problem while at the same time providing a legitimate solution is what people respect. Whining and complaining in a constant state of victimhood makes everyone dislike you. Making the best of every situation like I did as a child being abused and later as a homeless teenager is what people look up to and want to hear about.

Not one person worth a Damn in this world truly cares about our problems more than us, Trainwrecks. People who are worth anything care about their problems. People living in victimhood and looking for drama care about the problems of others simply to justify the existence of their own and to ignore solutions. People we should strive to surround ourselves with care about how we OVERCAME our problems. People chasing their own higher purpose seek out others (mentors) who have struggled and made a fool of themselves and wasted tons of money and time just for the opportunity to learn from their own mistakes. I believe experience earned from mistakes holds more value than experience earned from success. I have learned proficiency teaches “what to do and when to do it.” But true expertise gives us the wisdom to know “what not to do and more importantly WHY not to do it.”

So, let’s have a discussion! Make sure you smash those LIKE and SHARE buttons as you comment below.

What are things you are doing in your life in an effort to discover your purpose, who you are?
What are ways you have lost your purpose beyond your control and resolved to make adjustments to your plan to rediscover what will make you happy?
What are ways you have overcome negative influences in your life to rediscover your purpose and what makes you happy?

Leave your comments below and join in the discussion.

Understanding our purpose and why it is so important is paramount in feeling happiness! Through a little bit of pain and initial discomfort we can understand our purpose and what we can do in life that will bring us happiness. We can do this!

You’re Welcome. Internet.