Are You All Ready For This?
The 90s was a roller coaster of ups and downs. In 1989 I was promoted to the Used Car Manager position at the Honda dealership after being on the sales floor for about a year and a half.
I started the 1990s on a big high. The move to Florida was like winning the lottery for the first few years. I was making killer money, bought my first new car, had great friends, and loved my life. But much to my chagrin things would drop like a rock.
The Demotion
When I first started in the car business there was this older guy (probably in his 40s) that looked like a well-respected family man. He was married and had a family to support.
About a week after I started he got fired. I never got a straight answer why he got fired, but I’m thinking it was probably production-related. I felt bad for the guy.
How could they just up and fire someone like that I thought. I soon learned that was the Standard Operating Procedure in the car business. In the few years that I was there, I saw countless people get the axe. I was kinda of in with the “In crowd” with management so I felt pretty secure in my position but…
What goes up, must come down. I felt like I had made it to the summit of the mountain top. It wasn’t a “Rags to riches” story, but where I was in my life feeling completely lost, not having a direction, not knowing what I was going to do with my life, to finding the car business and moving up the ladder in lighting speed, I thought I had arrived.
Then…Bam! I got demoted. It caught me by surprise and I was crushed. In my opinion, getting demoted is one step ahead of getting fired, but to me, they might as well have fired me. I had a hard time dealing with the demotion at first and it made me wonder if this is what I wanted to do the rest of my life.
Unanswered Prayers
This would have been a good time to start praying. The problem was God and prayers were nowhere close to being on my radar screen. Had I believed in God I’m sure I would have blamed God for my demise. Looking back now,
I was doing all the wrong things. I was sleeping around, getting trashed every weekend and on my days off during the week. I never gave sin and being a sinner a thought back in those days. I’m sure the conversations that I had about God and religion were the same as it’s been. The thing is, the older you get the more you get set in your ways and your opinions get cemented in your brain.
Although I did get a poignant wake-up call. In November of 1991, Magic Johnson announced that he had contracted AIDS and retired from basketball. The night before I heard the news I had a one-night stand. It got me thinking about my whoring around days.
All Parts of The Master Plan
For as much as I got knocked off my game from the demotion and the struggles I had after that, looking back now it makes sense. Those were all stepping stones that would eventually get me to Atlanta Georgia which is where God showed up in my life in a huge way.
I’m convinced that there was only one road that I could have taken where I could have met God. However, if he wanted me that bad then I guess he could have arranged other circumstances, but that’s purely speculation. Either way, I win. Right?
Conclusion
Moving to South Florida was the best move I made in my life. I blossomed there and had arguably the best four years of my life. The last three were a struggle as I tried to find myself.
I didn’t see moving anywhere else because there was a lot to like down there. My parents were there. I still had friends and how could anyone want to leave the beach and all the sunshine?
