A bit of an announcement from me.
I've been tossing around the idea of joining the military for a couple weeks now and its been a possibility in my mind for months before that. I've come to realize things, just several hours ago in talking to marine recruiters. While I know they were just trying to prove their case, they unknowingly opened my eyes. Opened my eyes to the fact that the kind of work I'm best at, manual labor and places that would allow me to learn with my hands and by doing, are unstable jobs at best. Warehouse, retail, dockworking, whatever. All can be stable, but run the risk of not being such. And looking at the bigger picture I can see that likely I'd get a job, get laid off, get a new job, get laid off again and again until I finaly have enough experience to land a good posistion with a good company and finaly have stability. That's not a very good way of going about it if I want to move out any time in the near future. I don't want to move out only to get laid off and have no income for a while. Not a safe way to live. And with the economy bouncing around the way it is right now, that's how it would likely be.
Also, I have a real bad problem with self discipline. I slack when I should work my a** off. I procrastinate at every chance I get. I just don't do as well as I can with anything. I have natural talents with music, story writing, and learning things with my hands, but I don't put myself to it diligently for more than a month or so at a time and end up not getting as proficient as I could. I don't brag when I say I could have easily been in the top band in highschool or a regional soccer team, or anything else if I would have just put myself to it more diligently instead of just coasting through on the natural talent I have. One can have a natural knack for things, but most the time that's not enough to be labled one of the best. That takes time, practice, and diligence. None of which I'm good with. The military would whip me into shape both physically and mentaly.
I have the urge to get out and do something with my life. To get out of my parents house. To make a new life for myself whether it be living 50 miles from home or 500 hundred miles. And floating from job to job, living an unstable life, just wont do that for me. I feel the need for a huge change of pace. The military will do that for me most definitely.
Now whether I join and just go career military, or get special training in something that could carry over to the working world as a civilian, or whether I go back to school through the military, I havent decided and don't know all my options yet, but I will still have doors open to me that would have been a bit more difficult to get to otherwise.
So in all, I've made up my mind. I'm joining the military, preferably sooner rather than later. I feel its something I've been sorta sitting on the fence about doing and that it's time to do it. Something I've tossed around as a viable idea, been thinking on, and ultimately perhaps even wanted to do. And it's time I did that. I have no allusions of serving the greater good, I'm not having a patriotic phase, and I'm not doing it just so I can kill people. I'm doing it because it's a great opportunity to get out of this rut I've been in since I started working at Target back in 2005. (I spent two years there and have nothing to show for it.) Because it's an opportunity for me to grow as a person. Because it's just something I feel needs to happen in my life. I'm tired of being stuck. I'm tired of feeling trapped in a vicious cycle of repetition of failures at getting a life started for myself. I'm tired of doing nothing with my life. This is about finding where I fit in this world. This is about doing something with my life. Maybe it's not the best choice in the world or the best way to go about doing something with life, but it's what I want and feel I must do to attain something of what I want out of life.
I've been leaning towards either the Army or the Marines and I think I've decided on the Army. I have several friends that have been in it, are in it, or have experience with it. Meaning I wont be utterly alone for the most part. And as crude as this is, theres a better enlistment bonus hah hah! With what I save from that I could make sure I have plenty of reserves to fall back on if I am to not stick with the military after my mandatory service and try getting back into civilian life and work. And I just have heard too many negative and dreadful things about Marines.
So my mind is made up. I've decided. I'm going to start talking to my friends that have been or are in the military now. Ask all the important questions that need asking. And I wouldn't not be surprised if I enlist within the month if not sooner.
I've always been wishy washy on big decisions in my life. Wondering whether I should or shouldn't do something. It's time I swallowed my pride and went through with a decision I have made.
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