Sometimes destiny is put on hold for reasons I can't quite comprehend or fail to see logically. Is it my fault, a smattering of events that happen to collide at the wrong time, or just the way life goes? I'm still lost in trying to reason the how but events are still a quandary escaping clarity.
In the last throws of accomplishing a life-long goal, the meeting of different attitudes has squelched my desire to continue presently. If at all.
Requiring only a few menial tasks to complete the fulfillment's of higher authority and satiate the thirst, desire, and need that has been part of me for 30 years, I find myself in search again for a path to succeed. But, I will succeed regardless in nearer time than lengthy excursions for naught.
In recent years I've managed to maintain my composure when boiling internally beyond reproach if one word was uttered in deference, but I could not find the strength to retain my anger Monday night on my last flight before my scheduled check-ride Friday. I'm not sure if my instructor was having a bad day - perhaps I was taking too much of his precious time (as I made a point of saying to him) at $40 an hour plus airplane rental on top of that - or maybe I was Forest Gump incarnate and doing as stupid does. Sure, I was tense with a check ride coming up in 3 days time on top of doing night take-offs and landings Monday at 9pm, plus a little instrument flying to fill in the gaps during our evening excursion, but a lobotomy had not been performed on me prior to this flight as my instructor apparently viewed the situation. He informed me three times that I'd "failed" already before having the airplane even ready to taxi for take-off but the only mistake I made the entire evening was not bringing a flashlight. Big Whoop since there are two kept in that aircraft all the times and they were functional since I checked, but no need for them during "run up and taxi" since battery and engine power were available. Flashlights are a back-up if you loose power and can't read the instruments, charts, etc.. These were only a few very small things versus others I won't mention that raised my adrenal excretion rate and that made it impossible for me to continue safely without anger or distraction.
So, I expressed myself by shutting the airplane down before we even took off, pulled my gear out of the airplane, and asked just what the F*#$ his intentions were. Was he having a bad night? Was I taking up too much of his precious time at $40 an hour? Was there a nice piece of delicate pleasure I was keeping him from spooning with presently?
And, the coup de grâce was when I was scolded like a school boy, "Careful what you say, because you can't take it back."
Holy shit!!!!! REALLY?! AWWWW, I've done it now, huh?!
Yep. Done with him and will be discussing with him Friday the refund of payment I've made in excess of what I've completed. At least by Friday I should be calm enough to act rationally. Right now, however, I'm not in a happy place. At all.
I've been blessed my entire life with good genetics in athletic ability and somewhat in reasoning ability, but maybe the balance of it all is a curse of not having great success in controlling my temper. I've been good the last 20 years or so with only an occasional blow up (blow outs more like it), but Monday night brought back too many feelings of "happy anger" that needed to be expressed in all the wrong ways. And the damnedest thing is I'm still riding that "high" and can't come down. Not sure were to go from here, but I think caffeine and alcohol are off the dietary intake for a while and perhaps more bike time is needed to work out this bad energy.
Lots of biking...........
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3 comments:
Sounds like a lot of contemplative biking may help, take it easy and realize that thirty years of expectation carries both inertia and uncertainty.
...just a few menial tasks.
so the INSTRUCTOR you were paying the TEACH you to operate a machine that could KILL YOU if you made a mistake, corrected you (the STUDENT). And you have an issue with his ATTITUDE?
You of all people should understand the student/teacher relationship, especially since your students can't make mistakes either. Attention to detail is paramount in this industry.
4 weeks later, I hope the lesson you learned was to recognize the difference between things you should get upset about (like lumps in a breast) versus things that don't amount to anything (like lumps in oatmeal). Because there has to be more boiling inside than a just forgetting a flashlight.
Yep, I blew up. And yes, having time to reflect I've taken a lot away from this experience to realize that all my anger and a quarter still won't get a cup of coffee. I'm usually able to work out my internal stress on the bike or talk with the wife, but some things don't fade so quickly.
With that said, my instructor and I had a long talk a week later and determined that we both brought things into play that should never, ever have been allowed when safety and good judgement are the sounding boards in aviation. And aircraft can't pull to the side of the road when they break. You're either 100% all the time or you simply don't get into the cockpit. Period.
Like you said Pops, "attention to detail is paramount" and my instructor won't be there next time when it matters, and I don't want that situation to ever arrive. Yes, I'm paying him to hit the shock collar button when I'm a bad boy, so I shouldn't be angry when its actually my own in-attention to detail that may cost someone else their life.
I'm glad to say that this Thursday I'm once again scheduled to do my check ride, and it was the same instructor I was pissed off at that has seen me through to the end and helped change my attitude of why I'm doing this: not just so I can fly and see life and earth from a different perspective, but because I want to share flying and that view from several thousand feet with others. That's also why I started teaching.
Its never easy seeing life from the other side of the lecturn, but my eyes are once again open....
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