Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

Settling In 125meant to our egos, what it might mean down the line for our kids andour retirement. I wasn’t so much interested in being a hero with acapital H as I was in being a hero to my family and in my own mind bybringing down some big bucks. Call me shallow. Call me greedy. Callme what you want. I didn’t care. I still don’t, really. All I was doing wasliving the American Dream.Both of my parents were academics, Ph.D.s. Very, very smart andloving folks who busted their asses but didn’t, in my mind, reap thefinancial rewards they might have. My father was a director of a vocationaleducation center and my stepmom worked in administrationthere. They did good, important work and they told me there wereother ways that you could be rewarded besides a salary.I stored that as good advice and went down my own road, but now Iwas rethinking things. Humping through the jungles and mountainsof Colombia, my guts twisted in a knot, I had said to Tom, “When weget out of here, there’s no way I’m going back to work like we weredoing. No way.” Tom agreed.Stretched out on the floor, I knew I’d messed up things for my family,and I vowed to never do that again. Other things were more importantthan the number of digits in a bank account or on a paycheck. I’d tellmyself I could cut some spending here, cut some there. We’d be okay. Ididn’t need to make that kind of money. I could be happy without it. I’dgotten a pretty nasty wake up call, but that was only the start for me.I went back to a lesson my father had taught me, a lesson as oldschool as it gets, but it helped. He was a big believer in the “T list”—putyour positives on the right and your negatives on the left of the verticalline. As much as I focused on painful memories, regrets, and the guiltI felt about what I was putting my family through, I also thought aboutsome of the good things. I was proud of being a good father to my kids.It wasn’t easy being a single dad, and Malia had come on board likea second mom to Lauren and Kyle. I wasn’t the best husband, fiancé,or boyfriend, but I was a good dad. My relationship with Patricia, the