When to Let Go of Your Dreams
I looked at the clock. 11:42 pm. I took a deep breath, got up to walk around, and splashed some water on my face. I had been at my office for nearly 15 hours. After working a full day, I had just finished two assignments and a project for school. I looked in the mirror. A very tired and frustrated man looked back.
Life wasn’t always like this. There was a time when I got a full eight hours of sleep, worked out four times a week, watched a movie every night I stayed in, and went out with friends often. Yet, an overwhelming dissatisfaction with life left me riddled with anxiety and drove me to try and rebuild my career. That was my first mistake.
I started graduate studies in June of 2021. After getting medically disqualified from the Marine Corps, I decided the next best move was to keep studying to become an intelligence analyst in the D.C. area. I imagined a life similar to that of Jack Ryan where I would be saving the world by stopping the most powerful enemies of democracy through political analysis. I could not have been more excited. It felt like a second chance.
As time went on though, it pulled me away from everything I loved to do and living life as it should have been. This is at the heart of knowing when to let go. I hadn’t picked up a good book for fun in weeks. My gym membership was draining my bank account and my running shoes were gathering dust in my closet. Drawing and writing and no longer filled my free time. I hadn’t been on a trip in months. The Spanish I had learned was slipping from my memory. Even my work as a data analyst began to suffer. To make matters worse, I was living in a state of chaos and distress. It was nearly five months before I had fully moved in and unboxed everything in my apartment. What was unpacked cluttered the place to the point where I would get a headache when I walked through the door. I had not cooked an actual meal in three months and I hadn’t bought groceries in over a month at this point. Everything I planned became a major inconvenience. Nothing was routine. I was not taking care of myself and my identity was being stripped away from me.
Eventually, I came to love where I was at. It wasn’t the most exciting job, or so I thought. The job posting read “Data analyst with GIS skills and knowledge of Urban Planning to assist schools districts in development”. A job nowhere near as high speed as leading a scout sniper platoon in some far corner of the world or setting up shop in a nondescript safehouse hunting down terrorists, but it was something I was qualified for and where I could finally be out on my own. At first, days were filled with learning the workflow and procedures. Over time, I was given more autonomy and eventually became a one man department (soon to be a two man team) with a unique set of skills. I realized I had so much to offer at this company. Every day was filled with critical thinking, problem solving, coding, and analytic writing. It was fun and fulfilling when I overcame a tough problem. That was what I wanted. Yet, I couldn’t fully live into it because I had let myself become so distracted.
I realized that there were other things I wanted to do more. I had two data analysis courses that remained unfinished. I wanted to improve upon my current skillset and to branch out into other parts of the spatial data analysis sector. I longed to make more time for art and crafting to finally start my own brand, The Night Watch, which has been a dream of mine since I was seventeen. I had done a t-shirt design for a local church in September of 2021, and I really enjoyed it. Art could only take me so far though, so I branched out into leatherworking and it all came together. Suddenly, I had a new vision of life working my day job as an analyst and then spending my weekends and evenings in a workshop or at a maker’s market. There were other things too. I had barely explored the city I moved to. I had met a girl but unfortunately the relationship fell apart as quickly as it came together. I even missed out on taking a country western dance class. The decisions I was making were not aligned with my personal values or leading me to what I wanted in life.
It wasn’t all for nothing though. I helped start a Catholic fraternity at the student center, met some incredible people, learned a lot about life, and discovered so much more about myself. I think that is what matters more than anything. It’s alright to venture out in pursuit of something and find yourself changing course. You just have to trust the journey and holdfast to the ropes.
Joseph Mohr is an Analyst, Catholic, Athlete, Stoic, and, most importantly, a Floral Enthusiast. He graduated from Texas A&M in 2019 with a B.S. in Human Geography but quickly became an aspiring polymath. He currently works as a data analyst in the urban planning sector and runs The Night Watch, his personal brand. In his spare time, he enjoys studying art, architecture, cartography, psychology, language, and is a lover of running, lifting, drawing, nature, and chicken sandwiches.
