Guest Writer: Derek Ricke, E-mail: derek.ricke@gmail.com
Spring is a time of renewal in many traditions, bringing us fresh blossoms, new life, and new opportunities. As a veteran, I could write all day about the pain I’ve been through in my life, and I’m sure you could write even longer still. Today, I spent a significant part of my day crying over friends and family lost and rejoicing in the friends and family I still have with us here today. I cried some of those tears for my father, who, like most fathers, would be crying to know that he brought me such sadness. No doubt 10,000 fathers before him cried with us for much the same reason. It was an interesting thought. Anyone watching would just see a grown man crying for no particular reason.
Anyone who knows me well would likely have come to any of a number of assumptions of why I might be crying. Anyone who’s been paying attention to the news might make other assumptions. Certainly, I have emotions related to those things as well–but it is over those we’ve left behind that I cry today. My brothers and sisters in arms. Some of them are aunts and uncles who’ve lived good lives, perhaps not as good as they could have been, or perhaps better because of it.
I’ve always told anyone who asked that I got more out of the Army than I put into it, and I gave plenty. There’s much more to those words than even I realized when I said them. The structured regimens of the Army ensure that to be generally true, so long as you learned to play by the Army’s rules. In my ten years since leaving the Army, I’ve learned this to be true of the rest of the world as well.
The key to happiness in this world is simply to find the place where the rules line up with your values and do your best. I’ve found a few places like that. Most of them were volunteering in some fashion or another. I’m currently working to finish a PhD in Business, that I might find a school willing to let me help students to find the place where the rules best match their values, so that they might flourish upon this world. I don’t really need a PhD for that, but it’s fun. It’s the way that I’ve found my own way to open up to the world and be what I can be. My experience in project management helps — everyone loves the idea of getting things done. Yet, too few spend sufficient time questioning whether what they’re trying to get done will actually create the results they are hoping to attain.
Even I feel somewhat foolish in my efforts to pursue that PhD. I do believe it will open doors for me. I don’t believe it will increase my salary in any meaningful way. I honestly don’t care whether letters appear behind my name or in front of it. The main draw for me is that it is a path to give back unto the world that has given me so much. The idea of creating and disseminating knowledge and information has been central to not only my entire career but my entire life.
My request to you who read this passage, is to find your path to do the same — you have so much to offer the world, and spring is the best time to reflect on what that might be, what sacrifices might be needed to achieve it, and how to earn a living in the process. I know you can do it. If you need help, ask someone. Whether you are a veteran or not, whether you are struggling or thriving, if you don’t think you have someone, find someone. Find me. Find yourself. Find your path. Find your renewal.
About the Author: Derek Ricke is a U.S. Army veteran and a member of the West Point Class of 2004.
