A day of reflection and closing a chapter

So today is a good day and exciting to be able to close a chapter in my life and I start to  think about how far I have come. So yesterday my federal tax return was deposited in my checking account and today I was able to pay off my business loan 14 months early. Selling one of my kennels and the last of my working dogs were tough and started to show me that I was no longer in the dog business but the business loan payment every month always made sure I never forgot about that step in my life. It reminds me of when I was 23 and went to spend the weekend with Sandy Schlitt and his family. I had worked customer service for the first year I was out of college and had decided to quit corporate life and start up a dog business and bartend at the sametime. I had been doing this for about 8 to 10 months when I went and spent the weekend with his family. Sandy had told me he wanted to be able to talk about careers with me and see if he could help my with shaping a future plan. His oldest son, Stafford, was a junior in high school and Sandy thought maybe I could help Stafford as he was getting close to college. Being 23 at the time I was still in the party mentality and loved being able to work at night and run the dog business during the day. I thought that I had found my calling of doing what I want during the day and dreaming of how big the dog business could get. Sandy had some interesting knowledge to pass along and gave me some things to think about, almost like checkpoints in your life. Something that stuck with me was this timeline: In your 20's you are going to take on some debt and try out a few different career fields. This is the time to discover what you are good at and passionate about. By the time you hit your 30's you should be in your career field and starting to move up. At the same time you should being paying off your debt and starting to accrue your wealth. In your 40s you should still be moving up in your career field and starting to amass wealth. Retirement should now be in mind and setting up a plan to make sure you will be able to retire. In your 50s your retirement plan should be in place and you should be close to being able to see when the goal will come. If you start to get behind on this plan then you will constantly be chasing your tail and may never be in a position to stop working. At the time this sank in but seemed really far out to give much thought about. After a few years of watching my business partner constantly making excuses about why we needed to spend more money and make poor decisions it started to make sense that a change was needed. Watching my credit score drop, credit card debt stacking up to the roof with no end in sight, not being able to even buy a single wide mobile home and property in the country I knew that things were not going to get better on this path. Finally a bright light started to shine, the moron partner was able to get a large lump sum of money and the time to sell and separate was upon me. It was not a hard decision to get rid of half of my debt and the person who helped create most of it. What was hard what thinking "what am I going to do now and how am I going to pay off 25 grand of credit card debt?" I was 26 and basically starting over to get back into the rat race and go somewhere. After a few months I was able to find a job that would get things started, but I also had to keep bartending to make loan payments and be able to live. Little did I know that this was the start of things to get better. Since that time I have managed to be able to go from working two jobs to just pay the bills to now just working one job and doing whatever activities that I want. I started skydiving 4 years ago this summer and this sport has helped me appreciate each day and also to see how far I have come. It has also helped open the doors to meet new people and really find out who I am and what I want to do. I am now out of the sales world and working for the banks coordinating projects and organizing data for quick recall. I hope that I can stick in this field and continue to grow but you never know what is coming at you next. For now, 6 and a half years of paying anywhere from $550 to $407 a month on this loan is gone and except for the mortgage I have no debt. This year I will be 32 and have saved up enough to live for about 3 months and hope to have about a 9 month cushion of savings when this contract ends in another 11 months. I hope that I am on path with what Sandy had told me about 8 years ago and it is nice to look back and see what years of struggling has provided and gets you excited to keep working hard and see what you can continue to do. So to tally a few items: I can train police dogs to find drugs and explosives, teach dogs to bite and hang on to suspects on any part of the body, climb rock faces, run a marathon, bike a 100 kilometer race, BASE jump off bridges and skydive out of planes, grow just about anything that comes from a seed or cut and grow a clone of a plant, purchase and renovate a home and of course shovel more BS in an hour than a politician can do in a day, LOL. So let's all raise a beer and toast to what is to come next and remember to savor and laugh where you came from.