Ratzu Darkstone who owns and runs, Austin, Cafe LaPe’rouse @ Austin Island-The Story of O@ Austin, wanted Persistence, Grit and Determination, from those who were in his sim. Well, I have plenty as he now should know! The sad thing is he is a predator, and a phoney in all ways.
Sometimes, the hardest part of life is facing a failure or setback, and having to admit, your responsible for it yourself, and it’s no one else’s fault, no matter how you end up looking at it in the end. I have been there many times in my life, and know at times I am my own worse enemy, I get to a point where I let things buildup inside me and then one small thing, and suddenly I explode in anger. For each of us as humans, we are taught to hold our own so to say, to try to solve things ourselves without bothering others. We do it as men and women because we believe we have the real solutions and then find out we were wrong and end up making mistakes that cost us what we really want in the end. So how does one overcome and get to where one wants to go, in the end?
Some will withdraw, and hide and try hard not to show their pain, and then find out, they can’t hide it, because, it rises to the top and breaks over the dam we put in place to control it. I have been there more than once in my own personal life and I can honestly say, I have overcome so much in my life, it is crazy.
As a child, I fought everything around me, why, simple, I was hyperactive and had attention deficit disorder. In my days growing up the mid 1960’s, they had no idea what it was yet. So as I struggled to fit in and failed I faced problems with both my family and those in school too. I retreated into a world of books and comic books and then into the woods in the back of where I lived. Yet that didn’t work or alleviate the problem in my family life or school either.
Again, when one holds back a ton of emotions and fears, it will explode. It did with me as a ten year old one day, and that explosion broke a window almost hurt those I loved and in the end, marked me as a problem child. So, my parents decided they couldn’t handle me anymore and called in the State and made me a ward of the state. Which in turn brought in Social Workers, who then thought the best solution was to remove me from the environment I was in and get me help. I ended up in an Institution for two years from age ten to twelve. Did I belong there, not really, but in it I witnessed things I should never have, I witnessed drug overdoses, rapes, and in the end, I even attempted my first kiss there and failed. By the time the two years were over, I fought my way through my own emotions and asked to go home and got returned to my family. I was tagged in the Institution as emotionally damaged, when in fact I wasn’t, as I said.
I overcame this and so much more in my family. I over came verbal and physical abuse also there. My journey was far from over for sure, By 16 years old I had found friends and surrogate parents, because I couldn’t handle the abuse and anger I faced under my families roof, at home. These surrogate families, were there and would guide me and help me along, each in a different way, but it worked.
I overcame being a high school dropout too, by getting a GED a year later. That led me to a military life I started in The US Army, then US Army National Guard and then The United States Navy. I persisted through it all and made mistakes along the way of course everyone does, I overcame though, by adapting to the military rules and regulations and trying to be the best I could. I was slow and reluctant at first, but, I came around to stay in the military for 16 years. I wish I could have made 20, but an injury took me out, in the end I have five Honorable Discharges to my name from three branches, and all my benefits intact. I overcame through determination and grit and more. I never surrendered.
Overcoming things is a way of life and when you stop trying you may as well lay down and die I say. Life will continue on and as it does adapting, learning and growing are vital in life itself. I know because I overcame a divorce next in my life and losing my daughters to a mother who had her own mental problems too. But, I never quit and overcame to know my daughters and their children too, my grandkids are great.
Overcoming, standing tall became a thing to do, in my military life as well as after it. It took to age 40 to get a College Degree but I did it. I earned Honors and a 3.7 grade point average out of a possible 4.0, it took me three years instead of two but I got it. I got awarded for my studies too, the awards hang on my office wall today. I went on to run Hotels and Restaurants as a Manager. But, injuries and mistakes don’t stop and we face and overcome still.
By the time I was forty one I had to face my naval injuries and couldn’t work anymore. Did I surrender no. I was deemed unemployable by doctors, and had to give up work. I went on to write blogs, bury two parents who died of lung cancer. Then, later I had more come at me. In 2006, my second wife came down with breast cancer and that fight began. we still fight it today in 2020. In the middle in 2013 I survived lung cancer myself losing a lobe and a third of my right lung. I survive because i have grit, determination, and persist through it all and I adapt and conform when needed. It’s a lesson many still need to learn in life.
My lil books and poems are online as I write now and then, as are my blogs here. I do that, plus, I care for my cancer filled wife daily, a home that is paid off and has been now for years. I suffer from PTSD from childhood and Military lives. I am on a cpap machine nightly to help me breathe. So some try to tell me my anger gets the better part of me at times, but the truth is, it doesn’t normally, it takes a lot to get me to get angry and for me to go off. Normally, I get along with all I meet in life, and I won’t stand down when attacked or those who I love are attacked either.
You want to achieve in life, in real life or in a job, marriage, or even in a virtual one online, you, adapt to what is happening and what goes on and adjust period. If you want something bad enough you do it folks, believe me, if you don’t failure is what you end up with, ok.
Recently, I listened to someone hold a discussion online in a virtual world, talking about grit and determination and preserving through it all to come out the otherside. I just listened and said nothing, but when Ratzu Darkstone was done I felt, he was preaching what I already knew and know, and I wonder what he would say if he lived my life and knew the truth regarding my life. I wonder.
Never Surrender is a Military saying and Creed for a reason, now you know why!
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