COVID-19 really fucked shit up. Everything stopped. As I was prepping for an operational deployment overseas, the news begun circulating about the mysterious virus moving around Asia. Where was I deploying to? Asia. In typical Army fashion, we marched on and before I knew it, I was overseas starting another 6 month tour.
Long story short, that 6 month tour didn’t last very long and I was back home while the Army was figuring out what to do next. My department’s jobs mainly required extensive travel throughout the Asia Pacific region on a regular basis. Most planners were regularly overseas every other month – until now.
The funny thing about the Army is that it is always working, it never rests. It’s the “Big Green Machine” and you’re either a cog in the machine or you’re in the way. Since the beginning of its inception – it has NOT stopped working. So what do you do when every country in the world has closed its borders? Better yet, what do you tell the 4 Star General? Talk about an awkward time.
We stopped. We quarantined. It was a shock to the Army. Everyone worked from home and tried to leverage technology. Being that my office was filled with Baby Boomers, Vietnam Era Vets and guys who served in the 80s – this was a struggle. Try putting all these guys on a WhatsApp group chat and then telling them to log into a Microsoft Teams Meeting from home. That shit was chaos.
Online meetings were straight up comedy. Do you remember when you first showed your parents how to use email and text messaging? Or when you taught them how to video chat and the only thing they show on camera is their forehead? This was the typical afternoon sync meeting.
It also brought stress at home. I had another collegue who was one of the best briefers I had ever met. But as his kids interrupted every Microsoft Teams Meeting – he almost blew a gasket. At first it was funny, until I’m pretty sure we witnessed him physically abusing his kids in the background. Talk about awkward.
Because I was used to working at such an insane pace, I didn’t know what to do with myself when the quarantine hit. At first I was in uniform by my computer, at home waiting to answer every call, email or text to show I was working. Soon, I ditched the lower half of my uniform and chose my OCP top with board shorts. Soon after that, I blamed my camera for not working while I rolled out of bed to take a call or attend a meeting.
Eventually, I relaxed. I stopped. I now had podcasts to listen to. I now had books to read, forums to explore, people to chat with that weren’t in the military.I was able to do something I hadn’t done in awhile – THINK. I continued to work, but my focus was different and everything I was consuming and learning was much more interesting than the Army.
Whether I realized it or not, I was changing my thought process. I was seeing a world outside of the Army. I would have NEVER made the time to do any of these things until I was finally out of the Army because it would have never stopped. It was the forcing function I didn’t know I needed. It allowed me to finally take a time out to stop, reassess my life and actually see what else was out there. And boy was there a big world out there.
I had a new energy about me. I had this sense of learning and curiosity I had never gotten from a classroom. It was all self driven and I wanted to learn more on my own. I opened my mind to possibilities and I softened my tone toward strangers.
Looking back, I didn’t really talk to anyone outside of the military except close friends and family. If they weren’t military, I didn’t really trust them. I was always on guard and whenever I was meeting someone new, I was assessing them as a threat or not – all with a fake smile on my face.
Now I was meeting strangers online who were going out of their way to teach me something new. I met real estate investors in Florida, New Jersey, Texas, North Carolina, etc. I participated in forums, mainly to ask stupid questions or to verify something I was learning.
If I drove somewhere, a podcast was running. I remember a podcast that was 500+ episodes deep and I was learning so much from just listening to the latest 10 episodes. So I figured, “Shit. If I’m learning this much from 10 episodes, I might as well start listening to ALL of them. Imagine what I’d learn then?!” So I did. I stopped listening to music altogether and my car became my mobile university. I had a notebook in my glove box and finding reasons to aimlessly drive around.
As our time in Hawaii was drawing to a close, and our future duty station would be focused more on retirement, I wasn’t feeling as anxious anymore. I was excited. Could I picture myself buying and selling real estate? Was that my future? Was it my passion, or was it just my obsession right now? What drove this – money or the ability to work on my own terms?
We also stopped to truly take in the beauty of Hawaii as it was seen before all the tourism. We were very blessed to be in a position to truly witness Hawaii and we did not take it for granted. We savored the beaches, the views and felt the aloha spirit alive and well. With COVID freezing travel everywhere, Hawaii’s beaches were some of the most peaceful and quiet they had been in decades. You could go to the beach and listen to the waves crashing on the shore, settle into a book while taking in the sun, then jump into the ocean to be in the moment and simply – THINK.