Not Sure About My Next Step

I got my license Nov of '15, went to work for Knight within a week of that. Was with them until late Feb, I shot myself in the foot largely through inexperience. I've spent the last almost year (started march of 16) with a trash company, been driving a truck for them for seven months, give or take. I've been feeling much more confident about driving commercially, just really not sure how to square up my goals against one another.

I've been itching to go back over the road , I had a lot of fun when I was out for Knight, but I also eventually want to go back to school and get into politics. I'm not finding a way to make the two work in conjunction with each other. I understand if nobody responds but thoughts are most definitely welcome. I'm always glad to flesh things out too.

I read an article one time that had a simple but very important recommendation - you should always be working on your best ideas. In this case you could adapt that to say, "You should always be pursuing your best path in life".

Don't put off things you really want to do. Take the one thing you want to do more than anything else and go for it.

It would seem to me that a plan that involves going to school and then working your way up the ladder in politics is going to require quite a period of time to fulfill. I don't know how much time you want to spend driving a truck if you have high ambitions elsewhere. If you have a calling outside of trucking and that's your primary calling then you should be pursuing it.

Now I'll also make this point. I think most people are engaged in an tug of war battle between two opposing forces. On the one hand your head is telling you to find something practical to do for a living. It should be something normal, something others would approve of, and something our society holds in high regard.

On the other hand your heart tells you there are fun, exciting, adventurous things you would much rather be doing but you're afraid that pursuing that path might mean you'll be letting others down or you'll look like an idiot if things don't go well.

Weighing the pursuit of a college degree and a career in politics versus an OTR driving career is kind of an unusual decision to have to make. The stark contrast between the two seems to follow the "fun and adventurous versus practical and prestigious" tug of war theory.

I'm the type that always pursues what I think will be fun and adventurous. Sometimes it's a career, sometimes it's just a hobby, but you can be sure I'm always in pursuit of something fun, adventurous, and challenging.

The problem with pursuing something practical that you're not passionate about is that you'll never want to put in the time and effort it takes to really get far with it. If you're pursuing something you're passionate about you're going to be more than willing to put in all the time and effort you can to get as far as possible with it. And in our world there's always a way to make a living at something if you're good enough at it. How many millionaires made their money acting, fishing, or golfing, ya know what I mean? If you're good enough at something you'll find a way to make a living at it.

So that's my thoughts on the matter. Pursue your passion and see where it leads. If that's politics then go for it. If that's trucking then go for it.

One final thought......maybe politics is your passion but trucking will provide the financial foundation you need to make that happen. In that case pursuing trucking would actually be part of your path into politics.

Thanks for the input, Brett. I had already considered the avenue of using trucking to pay for going to school in cash, that way I can focus much more on utilizing that to its fullest. Something else I can pull out of driving OTR is the variety of people I can meet, something that I find to be a little more difficult just living in one location-- and that's something I can use as I move forwards, for all the different viewpoints.

Regarding the practical versus fun paths... I feel both are equally practical, in fact, trucking might even be more practical than politics... and in some cases slightly more respected too. XD