The track to self-fullfilment always begins with what you lovePhoto by Christian Meyer-Hentschel on Unsplash

Like so many other people, in my youth I had no idea of what I wanted to do with my life, or exactly what I wanted to be. That is neither surprising nor uncommon.

“What do you want to be when you leave school?” When school guidance counsellors posed that question they invariably referred to the kind of profession or career that one hoped for.

Even as a kid, that struck me as an incredibly bleak and narrow way of looking at life — surely the sum total of a person’s life was not simply the job that they were paid to perform? Was that all that would define me?

As a teenager I had no clear idea of the kind of job that I wanted to do. I simply wanted to be happy, and do the things I loved.

But that was neither a profession nor a job description, so I had no answers the day that I was called into Mr Foley’s office.

I enduring scathing glances from over the pair of spectacles perched on the end of his bulbous nose. So I sat there, painfully shy and uncomfortable.

Ironically, sitting there that day in the stuffy old school guidance counsellor’s office, I came to a realisation of exactly what I didn’t want to be.

So, I let the future take care of itself. That wasn’t anywhere near as easy as it sounds — my best efforts were constantly marred by the feeling that I didn’t match up to the expectations of society or of my elders.

I can clearly recall to this day another classroom incident which further served to reinforce this notion.

I still remember a stern and threatening Christian brother publically humiliated Robert Woodcock in the classroom after our meetings with the guidance counsellor.

Robert had apparently confided in crusty old Mr Foley that his dream was to be a train driver. It seems that all of our earnest responses were being dutifully reported to the Headmaster by the stodgy counsellor.

‘A train driver?’ stormed Brother Fitzgerald in front of all of us. ‘Son, your parents didn’t spend thousands of dollars to put you through a private boys school for you to become a train driver!’

Robert stood there, ashamed and awkward.

And I sat there, resonating with that same sense of shame. I was left with the vicarious sense that I also didn’t make the grade. But I kept quietly following my passion.

I swam and I surfed, and I feel in love with the ocean.

Photo by Mike Giles on Unsplash

One clear passion was music. I loved singing, and music for me was joyous expression. I revelled in it. I formed a band and sang. Very badly. My parents constantly chided me: “Why are you wasting your time playing in a band?

Wasting my time? Perspective is a funny thing — my reality was that I was filling my time with something that inspired me and filled me with great joy. With deep satisfaction.

And yet, their stern disapproval coloured what I did. It put a damper on my joy. Painfully self-conscious, I limped my way through rehearsal after rehearsal. But I kept going, and through dogged determination I got better.

I’m looking at an old newspaper clipping of an interview I did as a budding young lead vocalist with my first band.

The article is an eminently forgettable and cringe-worthy small town parody of the ‘big-time’ rock music magazines like Rolling Stone. It’s replete with the string of stereotypical questions — favourite movie…favourite colour. It ended with the loftily posed question of long term goals and ambitions.

My naively earnest response to that was simply: ‘To look back at my life with no regrets’. There it is, faithfully reported and scribed in newsprint for all time, so it must be true. I was twenty-one years old.

I continued to weather the barrage of slanted comments, even outright pleas from my family to put my time to better use. A couple of years later my band was supporting acts of the calibre of INXS.

I went on to do studio recordings and session work for other bands. My love of music has remained with me all my life.

I discovered there are many ‘armchair experts’ who will gladly tell you what you’re doing wrong and why you will fail. Don’t get me wrong; not every venture was successful. There are many stories, many adventures and many misadventures to be told.

Let me go back to my boldly proclaimed goal, way back there at age twenty-one: ‘To look back at my life with no regrets’.

All these years later, it poses for me something of an interesting question. How exactly does one lead a life without regrets? Is there some sort of a magic recipe?

Looking back at the path I have taken, I believe that one important ingredient is to make a practice of following one’s heart and one’s passion.

Photo by Arnaud Mariat on Unsplash

But there is a little more to it than that. To live with passion implies some degree of risk and impulse; it smacks of the notion of occasionally sailing close to the wind. And to do that is to risk mistakes or the authoring of bad choices.

Surely that must open one to the very real consequence of regret? So here’s the thing about failure — about making a wrong choice. Somehow you have to learn not to fear failure.

That is harder than it sounds; schooling, upbringing and society all wire us to view failure and the making of mistakes as a negative. As a point of humiliation or shame.

So here’s the thing — don’t fear failure or rejection. Don’t be afraid or ashamed of falling over, or falling off.

Or saying the wrong thing, or singing a bum note. Or being told that he/she likes you, but only as a friend. It is all part of the ride.

Oh, and those ‘armchair experts’? They’re typically the ones who have done nothing with their own lives.

I never did find out if Robert Woodcock ever became a train driver. Quite frankly, I would be overjoyed if he did.

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Be the Best Train Driver You Can Be was originally published in THE TWISTED WHEEL on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.