When I was 19 years old, my mother sent me to college. I didn’t realize the gift she was giving me. I threw the gift in her face and went into a life of crime.

Going to college was what other people did. You finish high school, you go to college, and get a job. I didn’t want to have a normal life.

I never realized the sacrifices my mother was making to put me through college. A few years earlier she had left my father because he was a cheater and he was involved with drugs.

I betrayed my mother as well. I said, “screw you, Mom.” I got my girlfriend pregnant and I got involved with drugs, alcohol, and crime.

I became my father. I had too much of his DNA in me. I ended being everything I despised in him. He was a bad father and a cheater, and that’s exactly what I became.

My mother offered me a way out and I didn’t take it. I was on my way to becoming a multi-generational failure. I apologize to my daughter for the millionth time for not being there for her while she was growing up.

I went into a world of self-inflicted wounds, a world of self-pity, a world of selfishness where I only cared about myself and my animal instincts.

Going back to live my unlived life

It took me about ten years to get a grip of myself, to realize that I wanted to be more than another loser. I decided to leave the environment where I lived, I decided to immigrate to Canada and get an education, to get my life together by going back to a place in my life where I had gone off rails, to finish my college education and start a new life.

I ask myself: what if I had never quit school when I was 19? What if I didn’t waste ten years of my life? What if I didn’t hang out with lowlife friends? Who would I be? Where would I be in life?

All of us have an unlived life

Have you ever faced a fork on the road, a critical place where your decision would change the rest of your life? Do you ever ask yourself what if I would have taken the other path? What if I would have (not) married that person? What if I would have studied that other career? What if I would have stayed in my city? or what if I would have immigrated to another city?

I do that exercise quite often. I try to imagine the Alain who continued school at 19, the Alain who didn’t play with drugs, the Alain who didn’t have an unwanted pregnancy. What kind of person would he be? Is he happy or dissatisfied with his life? I try to imagine that he had a certain success with his personal and professional life. Can I ever catch up with that alternative life?

It’s not too late to catch up with the person you want to be

Say you took the wrong path. You never became an entrepreneur, you never became an artist, you never followed your dream because you were afraid, because you were a victim of your circumstances, or because you were a product of your culture.

You can do it. After living your present life, you can go back to that fork on the road and take that other direction. Mothers do it all the time. Mothers often times put their lives on hold for 18 years, until their kids grow up and leave the nest, to revisit their dreams and start living their unlived life.

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