By Mike Johnson
In 1977, I was lost, lazy and languishing.
I was at my lowest point spiritually and financially, but now rank this time as one of my all-time favorite summers.
I was alone.
No roommate, no partner.
No car.
Spartan apartment.
Part-time work, fulltime bills.
I’d dropped off everyone’s’ radar.
I wasn’t a big deal to anyone.
No heavy expectations.
Nothing really mattered.
I was invisible.
Poverty, depression and acceptance are freeing.
Once you lose your dignity and ambition, the rest is easy.
Life gets very simple.
Survival takes all your attention.
I didn’t know it then, but I was writing the dark moment that would make my redemption all the sweeter.
Half the fun of achievement is recalling all you overcame.
During the deepest depths of 1977 darkness, I was only weeks away from spectacular light.
I didn’t consciously know this, but I felt it.
That summer was pregnant with possibility.
When you have nothing, anything is an improvement.
My daydreams spanned finding a wallet on the roadside, to securing fulltime work, to meeting a soulmate.
Then the phone rang.
And damn if all three didn’t line up in short order.
Forty-seven years later, wildest dreams fulfilled, I can imagine zeroing it all out and starting over.
It’s delicious adversity to journey from nothing to everything.
The quest to discover who you really are, just might be the grandest game in the universe.
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More:
The Lost Wallet Stuffed With Cash
Where to Start if You Have Nothing
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