Do you know what it's like...(part 2)

I have spoken in the past on some of my financial woes, being in so much debt will really bring you down. You sit there and work day after day after day to try to get ahead and go nowhere. I will never forget the day that my friend Bill asked me..." so Jed(my nickname when I worked in Germany, more on that later), You have been working here for 6 years or so(and he did some math out loud in the air) and you should have made about $300k, what do you have to show for it?" I was making great money when I was working over there, unfortunately, I was spending a lot of money as well. The biggest issue was that I didn't have anything to show for it. I was smart enough not to buy new cars all the time, but I was dumb with my money in other ways. I remember that I saved $10k in the last couple of months before I moved to Ga and that was all I had to start with when I got here. I had to buy a house, fix it up, and then get the rest of my family from Germany. So here I am with no money, I was trying to keep my wife at the time home to raise the kids without working and it was a sinking ship. My wife at the time did start working but it was too little too late. So skip ahead, the divorce comes, and all of the financial wounds from that cut deep. I have worked 2 full-time jobs since I got into EMS, first I was in the hangar during the day and on an ambulance at night. I left the hangar to go overseas to make "good money" so that I could get myself out of the hole and that fell through. I did go overseas on another deal but that wasn't beneficial either. I stayed in the States and just worked EMS day and night. I would leave home and be gone for days straight, I didn't know if I was coming or going. After almost 20 years of this, I just didn't see an end in sight. I told Angie that I was never going to be able to retire, I was just going to work until I died. You get to the point that you just don't know what to do anymore, at our worst we were $75k in debt. How do you get out of that hole? I knew that I was tired of telling the kids that we couldn't do this or that, that we couldn't let their friends and or girlfriends join us for birthday dinners because we just didn't have the money. I don't think there is anything worse as a dad or husband than having to say no we can't do this or that because we don't have the money for it. I will tell you that my wife Angie has been amazing at keeping us afloat, I know that it has not been easy for her. Without her we would not be where we are, she is a true blessing. 

Ok, let me lighten this up for up for this next one. I used to work for a private service and we mostly did non-emergent transports. We were mostly transporting patients to and from dialysis. If you don't know, dialysis is a way to detoxify people's blood as their kidneys have shut down. These patients usually have to do this 3 days a week, and without this treatment, they would die. You meet all kinds of people doing these transports, some are nice and some not so nice. A couple of people really stick out. First, there was this sweet little lady, and she was completely blind. I had transported her several times before I asked her if she would like to hear some music. She told me that she did and she told me what she wanted to hear. I can't remember the exact song but after it was playing for a few seconds she started to sing. There was nothing more precious than to hear that sweet little old lady singing. I am not going to tell you that she could be on the Voice or anything, but I will bet you that back in the day she could really throw down. She wouldn't sing every time that I played music but most of the time she would. The second person who I remember fondly is someone that most people didn't care for. This gentleman was grumpy, he wanted things a certain way and he didn't put up with things any other way. One day he and I were talking and I asked him if he wanted to listen to some music. He said that he did and he too told me what he wanted to listen to. It was an old-school R+B song that I was familiar with, I looked it up and it started playing. That man closed his eyes, a smile came across his face and you could just tell that he was playing a mental video in his mind...He was in a very happy place, he was transported from that ambulance and he was with someone that he loved at some point. To see that smile on that man's face was such an emotional joy for me. 

Recently I have learned the term Imposter Syndrome, the meaning: is a sense of self-doubt related to work accomplishments. You might have the feelings of phoniness and you think that you do not deserve your job. I have had these feelings for as long as I can remember. In a previous post, I talked about some of the mistakes that I have made, there were no negative outcomes with the mistakes that I have made. The fact that I made them weighs heavy on me, on my skills, and how I do things. I have told the many people that I have mentored, evaluated, and worked with that the only bad mistake is the one that you don't admit and that you don't learn from. I am constantly reading, watching and doing hands-on things to make my skills better. The only problem is that I just don't feel that it is enough. I mean should I know more than I know, should I be able to do more than I do? Last month I had a true crap call, I know that I did everything that I could do, I did everything right as I have been taught but in the end I am still doubting myself. These are feelings that I just can't shake and it makes me nervous at times. I have talked to some of my close friends about it and they tell me that it is normal to doubt yourself sometimes. Is it?