23 and clueless, but I didn't think so then.

My apologies for the grainy pic...but this was 1991and cell phones weren't a thing. This was a Sony Camcorder screen grab from a video that a lifelong friend sent my way a few weeks ago. The photo was taken during Memorial Day weekend at the Jersey shore. I was just shy of 24. The career was wasn't yet 2 years old.

"Holy Jeez" (or something like that) I said when I saw the pic  I said that because I was so young, so clueless, so inexperienced, so uncertain at that time.  I didn't really know yet how much I didn't know, but I did have my set of worries, for sure. But, I was 2 months' into dating a young lady who must've seen something in me that I didn't yet see in myself; we've been together now for 33+ years and have weathered life's storms while raising two great children, now adults aged 30 and 28.

I thought I was an adult but why didn't it feel like it? I was in the corporate world but did I want that? Was my career choice the right choice? What will my life be like? Will I get married and have kids? Where will I live? Etc...and so on.

What I didn't see coming my way back then was the countless crises and periods of adversity that I'd face. Each time, I had good people to support and counsel me but, in the end, they had their own lives and careers to deal with. I was on my own. If things didn't work out as expected, I needed to turn to Plan B, and Plan B was me.

I share this photo and story now for the countless young professionals in their early-to-mid twenties I encounter.  Every time I speak with students and young professionals, I find they have the same worries, struggles and fears that I had back then. They have their own crises they're facing and they think those crises will sink them...but I tell them they won't.

I also tell them that history repeats itself over and over again. And I tell them that I became who I was meant to be, the same way they will.  It won't be easy, not nothing worthwhile is ever easy.