The Last Straw

I served 23 years in the United States Air Force. Most of that time, I was a civil engineering technician. I was a surveyor, mapmaker, draftsman, community planner, construction manager, and a lot more. In that job, I was able to travel all around the world, from Korea to Tajikistan, from the Republic of Congo to northern Alaska.

During that time, I had a burning desire to be a writer. I have that classic writer's story where I started writing stories in grade school and was always a voracious reader. On a good year, I would read 60–70 books (if you count audiobooks, which I do). I took several correspondence courses to learn to write fiction, joined writers groups, and got my degree in creative writing. I have four novels written (none of them published), a collection of poetry, art, and stories (self-published), and countless short stories that I've lost or given away. What I never did was write professionally.

For most of my time in the Air Force, I struggled with depression. It was so bad that it slipped into suicidal ideation at worst and no desire to wake up at best. Until just recently, I'd forgotten what it felt like to want to get up each morning. Most nights, for as long as I can remember, I'd go to sleep quietly so I could go peacefully in my sleep and not have to face another day. I thought it was because of bad marriages or the high stress and tempo of my jobs. It could have been from alcoholism, which is rampant among US military servicemen and women. Looking back, I can see it was something different, and those things weren't the cause of my depression but a symptom.

Earlier today, I heard an interview with Aaron Doughty. He talked about how raising our vibration isn't really hard, except that we need to learn to allow it to happen. He compared it to holding a ball under water. You can keep it there for a while, but as soon as you let go, it will rise to its own level. I believe now that the depression I was feeling all those years was the pressure of my ball being held under water and my not allowing myself to just focus on my writing and do what I love.

Four years before I retired from the Air Force, I got an assignment to write training materials for the Air Force, and I threw myself into it. I remember the day when I arrived at my new office, and on the door it said, "MSgt Shawn Helgerson, Author". I was so proud. For the next four years, I fully rewrote all the textbooks needed to become a civil engineer technician in the Air Force. I wrote a textbook about surveying, math, drafting, mapping, construction management, community planning, and wartime operations. For the last seven years, if anyone in that career field was promoted or learned their job, it was based on the work I did—almost two thousand people now. I was so very proud of what I did, and I still am.

After I retired, I worked for civilian companies for a few years but never really enjoyed it. I still didn't want to get up in the morning and face a new day; I wanted to quietly die in my sleep. The thing about military life that always appealed to me was that I was serving a greater good rather than just making money. I completely lost faith in my commercial jobs when the owner of the company I worked for bought another new house at the beach. Don't get me wrong; I'm all about capitalism, and I'd never fault anyone for making money from owning a company. But it hits differently when you're just scraping by and realize your employer is rolling in cash.

A few years ago, I found a job working for the Air Force again, but as a civilian. It didn't take me long to learn the ropes since I'd done it for more than twenty years. It was a kick to my ego when I came back and no one recognized my name, but that's part of a different story.

I quickly learned that in our organization, there is very little continuity. Complex tasks are done inconsistently, with each person developing their own process. If they leave, which happens frequently, new employees have to start from scratch to figure out the job and are easily frustrated. As you can imagine, there's a high turnover rate and very low morale.

I talked to my supervisor and suggested I work on a standard operating procedure, or SOP, so new employees could get up to speed quickly. He said they had one they'd been working on for years, but no one had time, and it was a mess. I looked at it, and it was a mess. It was little more than a loosely assembled checklist of acronyms and complex concepts presented out of order using Air Force jargon; they used odd fonts and never ran spellcheck.

I was thrilled!

Over the last eight months, I spent several hours each week fleshing out their outline, fixing fonts, explaining concepts, writing new sections for lessons learned, consulting with experts who really understood a subject, writing step-by-step procedures, explaining how our military command structure worked, and doing a lot of beta testing. Each time a new employee came in, I gave it to them, had them read it, and had them give me feedback. When the book was done, I started developing test questions and study materials so that new employees could get up to speed faster. Everyone who read it quickly adopted it as a go-to reference manual for learning their job or for remembering tasks that don't come up often.

I was really proud of it. So I presented it to my supervisor.

To be clear, I had told him I was working on it on the side, and he had said, "OK, but don't let it take away from your regular tasks." I agreed, and it hadn't. He said he would present it to his boss at the next staff meeting and see how they could implement it.

I was stoked! I had visions of getting a promotion and getting recognized by the commander for putting together such a helpful document they'd wanted for so many years!

A few days later, my supervisor called me into his office. He had just come from the staff meeting, where they had talked about my SOP. He said, Shawn, what IS that thing?" and he laughed nervously.

"What do you mean?" I said.

He said, "That's way too much. If I had known you were putting in that much work, I would have stopped you a long time ago," and he chuckled again. "We're going in a different direction."

I wanted to stand on his desk, kick him in the throat, smash his computer, and crow like a rooster! It wasn't so much that they wanted to go in a different direction; it was that little laugh. I don't handle being laughed at very well, especially when I know I did the right thing and did it well.

Instead of destroying his desk, I said, "OK," and quietly walked back to my desk, fuming with rage. The following week, there was a new employee, and I stopped to say hello. He was reading a pamphlet of some sort, and I asked what it was. He showed me and said, "This thing that Joe (the supervisor) gave me...it's terrible."

I saw right away that it was the same terrible, loosely associated, jargon-filled outline they had handed me eight months before. I swallowed my words again and went about my day.

But that really broke me.

I have a friend at work we call Q. He's not one to do anything extra, and he claims to see the system for what it is. I talked to him about his whole situation.

He said, Shawn, look, you care too much."

"I think I care just the right amount. I really believe in the Air Force's mission. That's why I'm here."

"But the Air Force doesn't believe in you," he said. "You're just a number. And besides, what you did was great, but you broke the first rule."

"What's the first rule?"

"Never outshine your boss. It's the fastest way to get put in your place. You know, I know; everyone knows that you know this job inside out and backwards, probably better than anyone else in the building. And you proved it by writing that stupid book. Did you really think Joe would let that fly?"

My heart sank. "I hoped he would."

"You hoped wrong."

"I see that now," I said.

Q looked at me seriously. You've got to stop giving so much of yourself to this place. The Air Force is great and all, but it doesn't appreciate you. It doesn't care about you." Then he pointed at his computer and said, "Here, look at this." His screen showed the familiar bar charts and graphs of the New York Stock Exchange. He said, "I hear you all the time over there typing away on that book when you're between projects and stuff. You're being super efficient, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "They're paying me, so I keep busy even when my projects are slow."

Nah, that's where you're wrong. When my projects are slow, this is what I'm doing. I'm day trading. I'm making money on my own computer, using my own data. I tried doing extra for a while, but they don't care. So when I have time, I'm working for myself so I can get out of this place. Look around the office," he said, pointing at the other desks. "None of the other guys are working on side projects. They're on their phones or looking at sports stats. I ain't wasting my time on that crap, and you shouldn't either."

"You're right," I said. "I'm not touching this stuffy anymore. They can choke on their stupid SOP; that thing is a joke. In fact," I said, "I'm never going to use my writing for the government. From now on, if it doesn't benefit me and what I love, I'm not doing it."

"Now you're catching on," Q said.

And I didn't look back. Every day now, if I don't have work to do, I'm writing for hours each day, and I'm loving it.

I knew I wanted to start writing again and start building something for myself that would benefit my family and the world. I wrote a few things here and there, but I couldn't find focus. Then I found the Reality Creator Academy and signed up right way. It took a few weeks to catch my stride, but confidence is coming back, my typing speed is coming back, and the words are flowing again. For the first time in years, maybe decades, I want to get up and live each day.

I want to write again.

I'm a writer.