The dentist walked into the room. After examining my teeth for a moment, he came to a swift conclusion.
Invisalign treatments were needed. The sooner the better.
Sooner was not going to happen. Not until I scrounged up the money and checked what – if anything – my insurance would cover.
I shared this information with the hygienist. But she shocked me with her reply.
You had braces once, didn’t you? Maybe put your old retainer back in at night for the time being. Every little bit helps.
My old retainer. I hadn’t thought about it in years.
That oversight was probably the reason I was in this mess. Maybe if I’d worn the darned thing for more than a week after getting my braces off, things would have been different.
But that wiry metal mouthpiece was unsightly and uncomfortable. It cut into my cheeks as I slept. It was a nightmare to clean. It represented the opposite of freedom.
And so, in a fit of teenage defiance, I stashed the retainer in its case and hid it in a dresser drawer. As I left my childhood home for college, the retainer remained. And when I later moved halfway across the country to start my adult life, the retainer did not move with me.
At some point between then and now, it ended up in a dumpster. And my teeth drifted out of alignment.
So now, I was staring down corrective treatment. Treatment that would both be time-intensive and expensive. Treatment that was deemed obligatory for my health.
The ghosts of youthful indiscretion had caught up with me.
I backed into my career.
Longtime Ember Trace readers are likely familiar with the story. Burned out after three years in the television news media, I up and moved to a new city without a job lined up.
All my professional credibility was tied to writing back then. And content marketing was having a moment.
There was a fit for me, and I desperately needed a living wage. So, I ended up as a marketer.
These days, I do precious little writing for work. My current position is more strategic than operational. It pays far better than the job I entered the industry with. It’s more stable than that initial role. And it turns more heads at networking functions.
But getting from then to now has required a bountiful helping of humble pie. Marketing is not a profession that offers up the benefit of the doubt. A mix of persistence, patience, and self-investment is needed to prove oneself.
I had all of this in spades. And ultimately, it helped me break through.
I don’t take this achievement lightly. Yet, the opportunity cost of my journey isn’t lost on me.
You see, there are plenty of other marketers who got their start on-time. They majored in business in college. They gained footholds with major companies straight out of school. And they proceeded to climb the ladder in those structured, corporate environments.
I did none of this. So, I’ve found success later in life than many of my professional peers. And I’ve endured years of struggle that they haven’t.
The ghosts of youthful indiscretion have haunted the road I’ve traveled. And there’s nothing I can do to shake them.
Or is there?
When I was born, my uncle was still a teenager.
Even in early days, this narrow age difference wasn’t lost on me. I might not have known how to count, but I realized that I could play Tonka trucks with my uncle. I understood that we could watch Sesame Street together.
What I didn’t know was how unique my uncle was. Unlike many young men his age, my uncle had a clear vision of what he wanted to do in life. And he was well on his way to achieving it.
As early as high school, my uncle aspired to become a doctor. By the time I was in the picture, he was on a pre-med track in college. Through my youth and early adulthood, I witnessed his rise from medical school to residency to becoming an acclaimed surgeon. He now oversees an entire surgery department at a prestigious hospital.
My uncle was certainly “on-time” for attaining these accolades. But that required a remarkable clarity of vision during his teenage years. And that fact, more than anything, has left me awestruck.
Why? Because my teenage years were a complete mess. I wasn’t running afoul of the law or partying until 4 AM each night. But despite my best intentions, I wasn’t doing anything to set myself up for long-term success either.
I waffled over which profession to pursue. I stopped wearing my retainer. I couldn’t manage my own finances properly.
These decisions – and more – would haunt me for years to come. They left costly holes for me to dig out of before I could know what it was like to thrive.
It’s easy now to vilify my teenage self for not having it all together. But if I put myself back in those years, it’s not hard to see why I made the choices I did.
Adolescence, you see, is a confounding time. As we get our first taste of independence, we’re filled with both confidence and uncertainty.
I was sure I was making the right decisions back then, given the information I had at the time. But that information was short on experience and introspection. Only the passage of time would eventually add that seasoning to my prefrontal cortex.
In short, I couldn’t have expected any better of my younger self. I need to give myself some grace.
But then there’s the issue of the ghosts of my youthful indiscretion. Do I let them linger, or do I put in the extra effort to exorcise them?
For a while, I tried the former. But those ghosts cast a heavy shadow on my present and future.
So, I’ve gone all-in. I’ve made the investment – in time, money, and effort – to rectify the results of my flawed choices. I’ve willingly sacrificed my newfound prosperity to dispel the echoes of What if?
I suspect I’m not the only one at this crossroads. A great many of us are surely haunted by the effects of choices made long ago, when we lacked wisdom and maturity.
There is no shame in that conundrum. After all, it shows that we’ve grown into more discerning, conscientious people.
But we’re also left with a weighty decision. A decision on how to handle the albatross in our midst.
I’ve made my choice. What’s yours?