It's not the "Thing", It's the "Who"

Rich Bentz

Student of Life

January 21, 2018

It’s The “WHO”

On this lovely Sunday morning in January 2018 while my wonderful lady love and I sit enjoying our morning brew, she sparked a memory of a concept for me that she insisted I share.  So here I write my latest love letter to our Tribe. 

I have spent my lifetime engaged in many activities from working in a grey iron foundry as the pattern maker, or waiting tables and washing dishes, to a Radioman/Cryptographic’s technician on a US Navy nuclear powered sub, and around a hundred other things in between them. All of them were their own special kind of wonderful challenge, each beautiful to me and I wouldn’t change a thing because I have learned so much!  I’ve been inspired by each and every job and task and have completely loved the many valuable people and lessons life has shared with me through it all.  Yet the single most valuable lesson that I have learned is this:  It’s not the “thing”, it’s the “who”.

I know, I know, now you’re thinking I’ve slipped a disk and need a head restart because that just doesn’t make sense!  Our world in this earth is often very confused about its priorities, and often this is by design.  After all, the people who appear to run things in this manifestation seek control over everything and everyone, so naturally they use all the various tools available to steer us each into a “life path”, so to speak.  While on the surface this may seem innocent enough, and often useful, it actually does us each a massive disservice. If left to our own devices we each are equipped with the basic tools necessary to discern our life purpose for ourselves.  Having our culture impose its own understanding of things on us through its many varied and diverse institutions can streamline the process, and while often helpful, it most often actually leads to a life of drudgery saturated with a sense of emptiness and lack of fulfillment.

I was a challenge for my family.  My parents had a sense of my intellect and capacities, yet I performed poorly in school, lived what they felt was a lackluster life, and seemed generally unsatisfied, and depressed.  They sent me for aptitude testing and evaluation with the Johnson O’Conner Research Foundation here in Tulsa to see what might be going on in my head and heart. 

The results were unusual. I tested with aptitudes for every kind of challenge, all above 50% capability!  This is so rare that they have found fewer than .1% of the population tests this way, and they have tested hundreds of thousands. They identified me as a “genius”, and explained that other definitions of genius were guided by a narrow and extreme capability or two, and not as broad based as mine, so they were challenged as to how to help me!  They said that in order to live a fulfilling life I would have to use all my varied abilities, and that while I could do absolutely anything I wanted to do for a living, from astronaut to zoologist, musician to physicist, brain surgeon, or anything in between, I would feel unsatisfied if I attempted to excel at only one.  I should, they told my parents, try many things, often at the same time!  That is a challenge, I must say! A person only has so many hours in a day, right?  So in my mid high school years, I had been provided with some uniquely useful insights, and then sought how best to use my many and varied talents.  My grades went up, and my life became much more fulfilling!

I won’t go into great detail, but I will affirm that over the years, I have worked at many, many different jobs, and enjoyed them all!  My resume is extreme! I’ve played in a band for 15 years, while working full time, and often worked on a degree part time.  I’m now even a professional SAG-AFTRA actor!  I’ve treated my learning phase as a life long objective, unsatisfied with the approach of our system of education, I have decided to mold myself after the archetype demonstrated by one of our most illustrious Presidents, Thomas Jefferson, who constantly studied his entire life!  Homework doesn’t end when you leave school, however advanced!  Once you graduate, it ALL becomes “homework”, and you’d best do yours or you will be left far behind, whatever your career choice!  Our house is full of advanced physics books, religious volumes, history books, encyclopedias, and many classical novels, and others, much to my wife’s chagrin!  

As it has developed, I have come to realize that MY career choice has been to simply work on becoming the very best version of “me” that I possibly can!  I have learned the truth of the often quoted aphorism “The road is always better than the Inn”, as observed by Cervantes.  It isn’t the “Thing” that you do for a living in this life that matters, it’s the “WHO” you have become; the bright light and love that you bring to those around you in life, whatever your livelihood, is ultimately ALL that matters!  So with this shining star of insight I leave you, my loving Tribe, knowing that there are many of you out there that I will never get to meet in this life, yet I love you no less for not having met your best, or current version of you!  Blessings always, with Love, Light, and Laughter!  Become the very best version of you that you can!  Namaste!