I woke cringing to recall my business self.

For most of my time, forty-six out of my present seventy-two years, I identified – proudly – as a “businessperson.” I did other things too: I was a father, husband, tennis player, board member, neighbor: I gulped music and scribbled words when I got the chance. I played politics from the sidelines. But the preponderance of my energy and lucidity was poured into my jobs running small news publishing outfits, panting to make them big.

I was not very successful. I had my wins, about which I crowed, but also my losses, which almost crushed me. Naturally, pride precluded any admission of defeat, but I knew, my intimates and allies knew, my net worth knew. Unlike art, where beauty’s a matter of opinion, business rates success by receipts. A great poet can die penniless but not a great businessperson. If you lose in business, you’re a loser and that’s that. The clarity is bracing.

How I ended up in business when I’d meant to be a poet is a familiar tale. “Freedom of the press,” quipped the noted twentieth-century journalist, A.J. Liebling, “is guaranteed only to those who own one.”  Writers – pretty much unanimously – resent pesky editors and publishers who impede their brilliant inventions. Able editors often rescue writers from their delusions, but that’s not how writers see it. The radical freedom of the Internet, where any palooka can self-publish, occasions an ocean of swill. Do I except my lucubrations from that odious assessment? You bet. And yours too, if you suffer similarly. But most online upchuck would benefit from condensation – or suppression. Gresham’s Law prevails no less in prose than currency: bad drives out good.

I enjoyed business – mostly. I liked the adventure, camaraderie, glamor. I basked in the glow of putative riches. Business gave me plenty to jaw about, whereas any mention of poetry prompted pity, if not alarm. Many folks follow popular sports for a similar reason: it supplies them with conversational fodder more compelling than traffic, food, the weather or (these days) doctors and grandkids. (Did I mention Netflix?)

What I disliked about business was repetition. You make money in business by doing one thing well, better than your competitors: lock, load, repeat. I loathe doing anything a second time. Repeating I get restive, resentful, inattentive. Writing, while rarely remunerative, is unprecedented if it’s any good. Here I am always beginning. If I strike a happy note, it’s beginner’s luck.

Another galling requirement of business is falsity – not lying outright, but selling, omitting the inconvenient, putting one’s “best foot forward.” On the job, almost all executives are made up – predictable clichés.  My vanity revels in my specificity (you may have noticed). What seems to differentiate us – paradoxically – is what makes us kin.

Though a misfit in business, my career was not misspent. Born into what’s called privilege, I needed to be drubbed into shape. I needed to taste the bitterness of loss. I needed to become a person, not some pampered paragon. Only by humiliation do we find our way to humility. No pain, no gain.

While I cringe confronting the mediocrity of my career, my dare with myself is there’s nothing in my history I can’t face. Beneath our prideful presentations aren’t we all alike? Haven’t we all disappointed ourselves? Those who haven’t have set their bar too low.

In ache we find kinship. From ache we learn empathy, kindness, mercy. Only ache educates. Sharing our ache, we’re consoled we are not alone.

Business is a worthy calling. It just wasn’t mine. Self-spelunking suits me better, notwithstanding the pay.