Your life is a bunch short stories pointing you toward success.

In 2011 I went through one of the roughest, toughest, and strangest times of my life. I had just returned to the States from living overseas where I left a fulfilling job in an exotic country. It all seemed logical. Get kids ready for college, find new job, buy home, enjoy.

But nothing was adding up.

Until that moment, I thought I had navigated life and its never ending pitfalls, high and lows. I thought I had hurdled some significant obstacles in life. Heck, I was still married, raising two great kids, been through some decent career moves. I even thought I knew myself a bit. I had vision, and a certain level of talent, experience and leadership. I knew I was a loving father and husband and had played by the basic rules of life.

But if I was honest, I was just waiting. I was waiting for “something” to break, something to happen that would bring all of my life experiences into focus. “Hey, I am back from my travels. Now life is going to all come together.” Maybe I would write that book I always wanted or find that perfect job where I would thrive. Maybe I would start that company I dreamed of engineering out of nothing. The sky was the limit. Returning stateside was going to be the beginning of the best years of my life.

Then it hit. It started with a medical scare then slithered in as sleepless nights turning into full blown darkness. Depression.

I am not sure if it was long overdue jet lag, cultural re-entry (a real thing) a realization I was now over 40 or the departure of my oldest child to college but when it hit….it hit hard. Nothing worked to resolve it. I tried exercise, incessant walking around the block, reading, praying, crying...nothing……except writing.

I began to write. I wrote short stories about my life. The funniest, sad, inspiring stories I have ever written. These were stories of a young boy growing up in a family going through identity crisis, divorce, loneliness and wonder. I found myself watching this little boy navigate a life in new schools where he did not know a single person but somehow found a way to create his space. He was a curious kid who was at times internally lonely but externally crowded with friendships. The odds of life were stacked against him but he found hope.

I found out a few things about this boy, things that I knew but did not remember. I had stuffed much of that time in this boy’s life because I thought remembering the stories would just be too painful, besides I did not need them anyway…..right?

Well, I did go back and write. I thought I might have trouble remembering but this line of thinking was flawed. They flooded in like a river in Spring. They came as clear and concise as if they just happened. How could that be? Was time just waiting for me to open this door? I learned a lot about this kid.

He was a loyal. What he wanted most was friendships that would stick it out through the hard times. He had watched his parents lose this battle and so he internally committed to this loyalty at all costs. It would serve him well in those days and the days to come in his life.

He was creative. If life threw some boredom his way (which often happened as a kid of a split family), he would find a way to rustle up some event, journey, or scavenger hunt to pine the day away. He built tree houses, developed his own businesses of collecting golf balls in the woods and selling them illegally on the back nine. He even developed a skitfor his Jr. High class and designed the logo for the schools mascot.

He was a gatherer of people. Many times these stories would involved a motley crew of young boys (lost boys) skiing all weekend with nothing more than used up skis and a backpack of sandwiches. Most of these trips were scraped together at the last minute in a day when kids had no cells phones, no money, or a plan for the next day….just an imagination and a desire for a little danger. I laughed as I remember him hitching a ride to raft the Roaring Fork River with nothing more than a swimsuit, a fishing pole, and a battered tube at the age of 10. Risk was the desire and fear of failure was not part of his chip.

He was an athlete. His love of sports continually had him going from one sport to another throughout his life from field sports, to the sea, to the mountains. This love allowed him develop a passion for the outdoors and led to his vision for travel (which later sent him to Morocco when not a soul from his family had a passport).

He was an artist. His love of cooking (developed from years as a child of a single parent)turned one cooking job after another into a start up restaurant with an Italian immigrant when he was first married and in college. He w0uld come home smelling like garlic to his new bride, but in love with the journey he was on and the art he loved.

The stories kept coming.

Eight months went by in this dark season but the incessant walking slowed and the clouds parted a bit. I was able to get a few more hours of sleep, no more tears, and I began to hear the voice of God again. One day I looked up from my computer and realized I had a book of stories about a young man who found hope in the midst of tragedy. As I wrote I laughed, cried, and cheered his successes. There were moments when I totally forgot that this boy was me.

Somewhere along the way I had forgotten these stories that made me who I was. Yes, some were hard but most of them were just about a bumpy, winding path toward the arms of my wife and kids who love me for who I am today. We are all made up of these small stories.

This young boy had helped me see that who I was today was the totality of my life and everything I needed to succeed going forward. This boy was still the artist, gatherer, athlete, creative mind, the loyal friend. I could not do the next thing well without the good, the bad, the successes, and failures of these stories. This boy showed me that I had all that I needed to continue down this road of life because these stories were the building blocks of the next “thing.” That was the hope I needed.

Fast forward three years. That book I wanted to write got written. The company I wanted to start got started and the job I wanted was found. None of it would have actually happened without this little book of short stories.

Our stories are exactly what we need to succeed. Write them down.