Life
This feels a little corny and I’m not usually one to lambast the public with my thoughts, but I’m sitting here waiting for the pheasant opener and thinking about my career/life/future and how to feel and achieve success in all its facets. I have been struggling to find my drive at work lately - I’m a hard working son of a bitch, mostly instilled by the military and not ever really having been given many handouts, but I just feel a little stuck whether by virtue of my own doing or reasons outside my control. The one thing in my life that gets me going, keeps me restless and up all night (like tonight) is deer hunting. Here’s some BS for those with 5 minutes of nothing better to do than to read my musings:
A silly but true analogy/anecdote can explain what makes me tick and how I approach life. Deer hunting. Deer hunting may just be a hobby to some people, it may only be an activity for folks to get together and enjoy some nature and camaraderie. It’s more to me than just a walk in the woods. I take it seriously, every year, it is my favorite thing in the world to do. I think about it all year long. I fret about all the hypothetical scenarios I can find myself in when out in the woods. I literally lay in bed at night and think about wind, temperature, barometric pressure, lunar conditions, topography, habitat, and every other variable that might contribute to success. I think and plan about the gear I might need to be successful. I train my body to handle the stress of the hunt, and I practice with my weapon of choice and become an expert so that I can execute a clean and humane kill. I prepare until the only factor I’m not prepared for is knowing exactly what my target is thinking the exact moment I step into the woods.
I have deer hunted every year since I was 15 years old, and though I have not killed a deer ever year, I typically have. Not every deer has been a trophy, but I enjoy every second of the hunt regardless and I always enter the woods expecting that I might encounter a trophy of a lifetime. I understand that no matter how prepared I am, I still require a little bit of luck. The last 5 years of my hunting career, I have been blessed with luck and have taken several nice animals. I have also experienced failure and have walked home empty handed. No matter each year’s outcome, I enter the next season with the same if not more passion. I also continue to learn something new every year. I hone my craft and become better than I was the year before. I set an objective to harvest a mature animal, with the hope of exceeding all my prior year’s successes. Can I top my records year after year? Of course not - there will always be variables outside of my control, like parasites/disease such as EHD or CWD that diminish the number of trophy animals, poachers, natural disasters, and so on that prevent deer in my purview from growing mature. Genetics are another variable. But I always set a personal goal of killing the biggest deer I can.
What drives me to do this year in and year out is the thrill of the hunt and the ultimate success I have enjoyed in my hunting career. I would imagine that if I didn’t kill a deer for the next 5 years, I would surely lose some of the passion, maybe even go on hiatus. In prior and even recent years, I have shot deer that weren’t trophies, but I’m still successful and the journey each year keeps me coming back. I need that goal of harvesting a trophy to keep me excited. I need the annual success to keep me engaged.
This year so far has been incredible. I drew a special permit to hunt an area very special to me. I had 1 week to hunt. I was not able to harvest the trophy I wanted, but I was successful in killing a decent buck and utilized a variety of methods and techniques that led to this success - it was exhilarating the way it all came together, despite the size of the trophy. I was also lucky enough to hunt a golf course I had been working on and shot a nice buck on my first sit. I used past hunting experience and knowledge of deer as a species and it came together in one of the easiest but most gratifying hunting experiences I’ve had in years. And the season isn’t over. I have been learning how to hunt mule deer for the past 3 years, and feel poised to shoot my best deer yet this year. (I am hunting multiple states for those wondering)
What it all comes down to is this - goals, preparation, luck, and taking home wins (big AND small). I won’t always have the same opportunities to be as successful year in and year out, but it’s taking home the lessons in success and failure and knowing I put in every effort. I can look back at different seasons and recognize that my best years were my most prepared. I’ve never been lucky enough to rely on luck alone to achieve success. In summary, I think I just need to remind myself of the similarities that hunting can be applied to in life. Now if I could only kill deer with spreadsheets, emails, cold calls, negotiations, etc, I’d be unstoppable.
This feels a little corny and I’m not usually one to lambast the public with my thoughts, but I’m sitting here waiting for the pheasant opener and thinking about my career/life/future and how to feel and achieve success in all its facets. I have been struggling to find my drive at work lately - I’m a hard working son of a bitch, mostly instilled by the military and not ever really having been given many handouts, but I just feel a little stuck whether by virtue of my own doing or reasons outside my control. The one thing in my life that gets me going, keeps me restless and up all night (like tonight) is deer hunting. Here’s some BS for those with 5 minutes of nothing better to do than to read my musings:
A silly but true analogy/anecdote can explain what makes me tick and how I approach life. Deer hunting. Deer hunting may just be a hobby to some people, it may only be an activity for folks to get together and enjoy some nature and camaraderie. It’s more to me than just a walk in the woods. I take it seriously, every year, it is my favorite thing in the world to do. I think about it all year long. I fret about all the hypothetical scenarios I can find myself in when out in the woods. I literally lay in bed at night and think about wind, temperature, barometric pressure, lunar conditions, topography, habitat, and every other variable that might contribute to success. I think and plan about the gear I might need to be successful. I train my body to handle the stress of the hunt, and I practice with my weapon of choice and become an expert so that I can execute a clean and humane kill. I prepare until the only factor I’m not prepared for is knowing exactly what my target is thinking the exact moment I step into the woods.
I have deer hunted every year since I was 15 years old, and though I have not killed a deer ever year, I typically have. Not every deer has been a trophy, but I enjoy every second of the hunt regardless and I always enter the woods expecting that I might encounter a trophy of a lifetime. I understand that no matter how prepared I am, I still require a little bit of luck. The last 5 years of my hunting career, I have been blessed with luck and have taken several nice animals. I have also experienced failure and have walked home empty handed. No matter each year’s outcome, I enter the next season with the same if not more passion. I also continue to learn something new every year. I hone my craft and become better than I was the year before. I set an objective to harvest a mature animal, with the hope of exceeding all my prior year’s successes. Can I top my records year after year? Of course not - there will always be variables outside of my control, like parasites/disease such as EHD or CWD that diminish the number of trophy animals, poachers, natural disasters, and so on that prevent deer in my purview from growing mature. Genetics are another variable. But I always set a personal goal of killing the biggest deer I can.
What drives me to do this year in and year out is the thrill of the hunt and the ultimate success I have enjoyed in my hunting career. I would imagine that if I didn’t kill a deer for the next 5 years, I would surely lose some of the passion, maybe even go on hiatus. In prior and even recent years, I have shot deer that weren’t trophies, but I’m still successful and the journey each year keeps me coming back. I need that goal of harvesting a trophy to keep me excited. I need the annual success to keep me engaged.
This year so far has been incredible. I drew a special permit to hunt an area very special to me. I had 1 week to hunt. I was not able to harvest the trophy I wanted, but I was successful in killing a decent buck and utilized a variety of methods and techniques that led to this success - it was exhilarating the way it all came together, despite the size of the trophy. I was also lucky enough to hunt a golf course I had been working on and shot a nice buck on my first sit. I used past hunting experience and knowledge of deer as a species and it came together in one of the easiest but most gratifying hunting experiences I’ve had in years. And the season isn’t over. I have been learning how to hunt mule deer for the past 3 years, and feel poised to shoot my best deer yet this year. (I am hunting multiple states for those wondering)
What it all comes down to is this - goals, preparation, luck, and taking home wins (big AND small). I won’t always have the same opportunities to be as successful year in and year out, but it’s taking home the lessons in success and failure and knowing I put in every effort. I can look back at different seasons and recognize that my best years were my most prepared. I’ve never been lucky enough to rely on luck alone to achieve success. In summary, I think I just need to remind myself of the similarities that hunting can be applied to in life. Now if I could only kill deer with spreadsheets, emails, cold calls, negotiations, etc, I’d be unstoppable.
