A Boy and His Truck
I've always wanted a pickup truck. The reasons have changed throughout the course of my life, but I've wanted one for as long as I can remember. The earliest reasons are all connected to my love of country music. There is always something happening with a pickup truck in country music. Work is getting done, important conversations are happening, parties seem to break out wherever two or three are gathered, or someone is making love or getting their heartbroken in the bed of a pickup. Pickup trucks are a cultural norm and they stand for so much more than just getting from point A to point B. Life happened around pickups.
As I got little older I thought a pickup truck held a direct link to who I was and what I wanted. After all, as the former poet Joe Diffie proclaimed, there's something women like about a pickup man. I wanted to be wanted, to have love and meaning. I wanted to be thought of as a hard worker, and I especially wanted to be thought of as unbreakable. Pickup trucks were rugged, built tough, and could handle the toughest jobs. If I drove a pickup truck I would be those things, too. It's safe to automakers have done a great job permeating the auto market with toxic masculinity.
None of this is to say that there is anything wrong with a pickup truck or the people that drive them (environmental issues aside). I promise, I'm not projecting on you. In fact, I still want a pickup truck some day, but the reasons have changed.
A pickup truck, or something else that would satisfy the dream I have for my life, is still so pivotal that I've built a reminder of that dream that sits on a shelf in my office. It's the Lego Ford Raptor technic set, bright orange, with pistons in the engine actually work and a steering wheel turns the front wheels. I built it with my son (a Lego wizard) last summer. Just spending time doing something with my son was reason enough for me to spend $100 dollars on my first Lego set. But I was building it for another reason.
If you want your dreams to become a reality you have to keep reminding yourself of that dream over and over. You have to keep it alive and not allow it to be pushed aside by everything else that vies for your time, energy, attention, and resources. My passion is to help stuck people discover and live from a deep self awareness so that they are choosing the life they want to live. It is powerful work and I love doing it. Another reason I love the work, and where I am acting with awareness in my own life, is that it allows me freedom of location. My goal is to be able to coach on the road, at least few months of the year. When it's just too cold in Michigan and the snow is falling, my wife and I can be kayaking in Texas or I could be playing golf in southern California. With our pickup truck and camper, we can travel across the US to visit the national parks, drive through the Florida Keys, or visit Maine in the fall.
My Lego pickup truck is a symbol of the life I want to live, but it's no longer about the truck. Every time I see it I'm reminded of the work I do to help people choose to live lives of intention and to live intentionally myself. I'm reminded that good things can happen, that I'm allowed to hope and dream. I'm reminded of the story I'm writing with my life, and I want to make it a good one. And I'm reminded of how a pickup truck stands for so much more than just getting from point A to point B.