Daddy's Girl (Explicit)

By Mark vonAppen

So, I’m at this backyard BBQ when this guy walks up…

Listing, he points his wine glass at me, “Fireman, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

It always goes the same way…

Idyllic, bullshit conversation ensues…

“Checkers and coffee all day, right?” He chuckles and claps me way too hard on the shoulder in a way that is way too chummy for a guy who’s not my friend.

Who the fuck is this guy?

I smile back, “Right…”

“You guys make a lot of money,” he persists.

I take a drink of my beer as my eyes dart around looking for my wife.

Get me out of here.

“I hear you guys are never at work.”

“Well, that’s not actually true…”

I can feel it, here it comes.

“So…”

The obligatory, ugly question.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?”
Fuck.

“You don’t want to hear it.”

“C’mon man, tell me…” A misting of spit hits my face. He pokes me in the chest.

Others surround to witness the novelty, I can hear them now…

“He’s a fireman, how neat…”

I’m like a side-show carnie…

Tell us a story…

“No, you don’t want that in your head.”

“I can take it, c’mon give me a good one.”

If he had only raised his chin as he said it.

I snarl inside. 

The fuck you can…

Ok motherfucker - you want to take that ride? Take a deep hit of that chardonnay you cradle in your callous free, SPF 70 protected hands- you’re going to need it.

You asked for it, you pussy with your limp-dick, sweaty hand shake, living your insipid, zero-risk life, here it comes…

Climb inside my fucked up skull.

“Ok…

What do you think about when you drive to work?

I think about scars in the pavement, deep and angry.

Three cars…

Battery acid, gasoline, radiator fluid, crunching glass beneath my feet…

A dead girl, a screaming boy, a headless man, a dog…

120 days a year, cup of coffee in hand on my way to work, I pass the spot…

Trips with my family, there she is…

It's always there, if I try not to think about it - I’m thinking about it.

Right?

If I choose a different road, so I won’t see the scars in the pavement, it means I took a different road so I wouldn’t think about it - still thinking about it by trying not to think about it - a fucking endless feedback loop.

So here it is.

Fuck you for making polite conversation.

For making me think about it again.

I see a woman asleep drifting across the median into oncoming traffic,

A large truck with a lumber rack, you know the kind I mean?”

Fingering the neck of his glass he nods and shifts his weight.

“A boy and a girl in a tiny car, radio up, windows down, off together on an adventure…

A warm cloudless day…

Beautiful.

A horrific impact.

Front ends buried in the freeway, pavement gouged.

A woman sits beside the road, as if dropped from the sky, knees tucked to chest, head down, her face vacant.

She doesn’t have a mark on her.

Where’d she come from?

The boy is crushed. The girl is dead.

She was pretty as I recall… underneath blood matted shoulder length auburn hair, ribbons of ruby blood lay against her ashen skin, life drained, her heart crushed by the collision.

I watch her chest for the heaving of breath.

Nothing.

I brush a wisp of hair aside and touch her neck, still warm, slick with blood, feeling for the liquid slamming of her heart.

Nothing.

She wore a sleeveless blouse, on her shoulders she has tiny freckles…

Slivers of glass glisten like pixie dust over her body…

She spills from her seat onto her boyfriend, the driver.

He screams a scream from a place I’ve heard too many times, that place of anguish I never want to go again.

‘HOWS MY GIRLFRIEND? SHE WON’T ANSWER ME…’

Her head lies on his shoulder, neck violently snapped on impact.

His torso pinned, he can’t turn to see her or free an arm to touch her…

I lie. I say we’re doing everything we can.

We can’t do anything for her, she’s dead.

I sort the dead and living as though reading a grocery list.

No breathing, no pulse...

Next…

It’s nothing personal, it’s the job.

At times like these when you’re dead, you’re dead. If you’re close, you’re probably dead too.

Close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and triage.

That’s not it…”

He says, “Oh, shit, it gets worse?”

I seethe.

“Yup.

Truck spins off into another lane…

A normal guy in a car…

Going about his antiseptic life when two vehicles explode in front of him,

The big work truck, the one with the lumber rack- careens backwards into his lane…

The bumper of the truck with a 50 lb. vice attached,shatters the wind shield, severing his head…

When somebody’s head is gone that’s an easy one to figure out, done.

Next…

Vice and head in the back seat.”

“No…” the prick says.

“Want some more?” I ask like a combat-raged door gunner, straight out of the throes of battle, words are my ordinance.

He looks for a way out, “Oh my God…”

I lean in to him, temples throbbing.

“Wait, there’s more… You wanted a good one; right?

The car is really fucked up,

Now we have to get the boy out...

It takes about a half an hour or so.

He’s SO twisted up inside the car, every time we try to push, pull, or cut part of the car he screams from that place.

Long, drawn out, torturous screams until he loses his breath…

The veins in his neck bulge.

‘STOP! OH MY GOD, STOP!

HOW’S MY GIRLFRIEND?’

I try to soothe him, ‘Hang in there buddy. This is going to hurt.  We’re doing the best we can.’

Pathetic right? That’s the best shit I can come up with under the circumstances.

I had a lot going on.

I can’t see his face anymore, only hers.

Hazel eyes open to stare at nothing.

A heart shaped pendant around her neck...

‘Daddy’s Girl’

Each time we rock the car, her head, held on her freckled shoulders only by the skin of her neck, no life to hold the muscles firm, bones turned to gravel, convulses side to side and front to back in a manner that I can’t describe.

Or maybe I just did...I don’t know…

Stop shaking the fucking car!

We hold her head still so we feel better…

‘SHE WON’T ANSWER ME…’

We pop the door off with the Jaws -

Dashboard finally pushed off the boy, we lift him out.

Bones broken, his arms and legs hanging and bending like he has extra joints in the center of all his long bones.

Kind of like the limp tentacles of an octopus. Does that make sense?”

The prick looks through me.

I gulp down some beer...

I boil…

Poke me in the chest again motherfucker…

“My job isn’t so fucking cute anymore is it dipshit?

And it’s still not over.

Sharp white fragments of bone stick through his skin from these newly formed joints in the middle of his arms and legs.

The jagged ends grind together as we carry him…

He screams…

His limbs shattered in too many places to count.

A gurney carries him away.

Just when I think it’s over… this God damned dog appears.

Where the Hell did he come from?

He limps along on three good legs. One of his fore legs angled in a way that doesn’t make sense.

Enough already!

FUCK!

He whimpers. Dazed, he hobbles past me.

His snout is bent at weird angle too, webs of blood and drool hanging from it.

‘Aw, Jesus Christ! Let me shoot him…’ A police officer says to no one in particular.

We cover the daddy’s girl with a yellow blanket.

I look down and think, ‘Holy shit, look at how deep the pavement is scarred.’

Anything else you want to know before you move on to the next conversation?”

Asshole…

“Every time I drive past, there she is.”

“Daddy’s Girl”

The terrible (and real) accident occurred a number of years ago (2003) on Highway 280 in Northern California. I was inspired (strange choice of words) to write the piece when my wife asked me over coffee on a Sunday morning (2011) what it looks like when a train hits someone.

She had been reading an article in the paper in which a couple visiting our area were hit by a commuter train and the wife was killed. I have been on too many pedestrian versus train incidents in my career. My answer, “Not pretty. You don’t want to know.”

Most of the time I’m polite and I decline to tell stories. The ghosts that rattle around in my head need to stay there, free to haunt me and no one else. My reality is not the same as theirs. Not even close. I am glad it’s not.

My mind says to me, “Remember when that guy doused himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire? Remember what it smelled like in the medic van as you drove him as fast as you could to the trauma center?”

That was Mockingbird Lane in Sunnyvale, 1997. I was a 24 year-old kid EMT on a paramedic unit.

Charles Bukowski wrote a beautiful and somber poem titled “The Layover”. I think it sums up a lot of what I have seen, and what I experienced in my career, though years ago by measure, it is only one sentence back in my mind.

The Layover 

That moment - to this. . .

may be years in the way they measure,

but it's only one sentence back in my mind

there are so many days

when living stops and pulls up and sits

and waits like a train on the rails…

I look up at the window and think,

I no longer know where you are,

and I walk on and wonder where

the living goes

when it stops

- Charles Bukowski

I look at places around town in terms of where my first fire occurred, someone was stabbed or shot there, we delivered a baby on that corner, and scars in the pavement…

Someday the freeway will be resurfaced and then maybe she’ll go away, or maybe she won’t.

Every time I drive to work along the freeway my eyes track to the exact spot where the pavement is gouged and I go back.

Battery acid, radiator fluid, twisted metal, crunching glass beneath my feet, the sweet, coppery smell of blood…and there she is.

***PTSD is a subject we don't like to talk about.  Suicide among Fire/Police/EMS is a much bigger problem than anyone cares to mention.  It is truly the industry's dirty little secret.  They are both very real issues and they are right in our face.  If you, or someone you know is suffering there is help: Contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 
1(800) 273-TALK (8255) 

Treat People Right

By Mark vonAppen

If you subscribe to this blog, it's no secret to you that I am a bit of a rogue at heart.  I am driven by passion,  I talk to myself,  I have a short fuze, I live for my family, and I live for the craft.  I have little tolerance for apathy. If my passions don't receive much needed exercise I start to chew on things, dig holes in the yard, and get myself into hot water with those in positions of management. Note the use of management in the previous sentence rather than leadership.

As a rogue, you can feel ostracized and jaded for loving the job.  Maybe you've made enemies and burned bridges to light your way.  If you feel that your love is unreasonable and unrequited, it can lead you to do things that damage relationships and hurt your career.  

How do you avoid self-destructive behavior?  

The most important thing to do is own who you are.  You have to realize that your passion for the job is yours, and you have to accept it.  If you make a big mistake in a fit of passion you have to wear it, make it right, and then let it go.  Mistakes don't define you, but how you choose to deal with them most certainly will.  I try to remind myself of the core values of FULLY INVOLVED when I get frustrated, one of which is treat people right.  

If you let your passion for the craft turn to anger, you will push away the very people you are trying to reach. Realize that nothing is forever and that not everyone shares the same motivations.  They are not you, and you are not them.  Owning who you are means being true to what you are, an ambassador of the craft.  Ambassadors of the craft care about their brothers and sisters.  They treat people right.  Anger is the poison in this whole process.  Remember that the next time you feel like lashing out at someone for not knowing or caring as much about something as you do.    

"Once you own your responsibility to strive to be the best that you can be, and help others to do the same, your unrest will subside."

We spend entirely too much time chasing an ideal of what should be rather than focusing on what is.  That type of thinking always leads to disappointment.  Share what you love about the job, not how you think others should be.  Save the highest standards for you and you alone for that is what you control.  Gravitate towards those who exhibit similar DNA.  You can't control others or make them shoulder your passions, but you can control how you share what you know and love about the job with everyone.  When your energy is positive it is bound to inspire someone in some small way. 

Nothing will ever be perfect and that is the frustration.  We set ourselves up for failure when we shove our desires down others throats.  When they don't live up to what we want we are disappointed and thus, we are never happy as we constantly seek our definition of perfection in others.  It is an ideal state that they can never achieve because it doesn't belong to them.  It exists only in our imagination.  Once you own your responsibility to strive to be the best that you can be, and help others to do the same, your unrest will subside.

There is freedom in letting go and there is a difference between letting go and quitting. Don't quit, but you have to let go.  Mediocre people don't like high achievers and high achievers don't like mediocre people, but they have to find a way to coexist and perform at a high level.  Don't lower your standards, but don't judge those who don't share your intrinsic motivations. Accept them for who they are and help them improve. Teach others in a positive manner at every opportunity.

Nothing in this world is permanent.  We are crazy if we think that it is.  The key is to appreciate people and things for what they are in the moment and make the most out of right now because everything before and after is just a story.  Talk to your brothers an sisters and explain the fire that burns inside of you.  If they truly are family, they will welcome their wayward brother or sister home, treat them right, and accept them for who they are.  

Take It Back

Photo by Irons and Ladders

By Mark vonAppen

Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth. Our professional plan, when the dollars flowed freely and operations mattered, used to include slack in the system to absorb the unforeseen and unthinkable.

Not anymore. 

Do we have a plan for a fight gone bad?  At street level, where it really matters, we have to because often the organization, mired in bureaucracy and catch phrases, does not.  We have to create our own plan because no one else will. Is operating without a plan and hoping things will work out for the best any way to do business?  

No.  

So, let's dispense with the pleasantries and talk honestly about what is going down.   

We're not waiting anymore.  We won't accept average.  We won't be shackled by fear and ignorance.  We won't ask for permission to to carve time from the day in order to train and make ourselves better and safer.  We will do as we see fit to uphold our obligation to our brothers and sisters in the firehouse and in the community.  

"The insiders are counting on us to be passive.  They're counting wrong.  We're not being polite anymore.  We're at the door and we're taking the craft back for ourselves."  

Photo by author

Aggressive, educated, proactive firefighting that starts with the mindset that every run is the real deal, every structure is occupied, and that we will extend risk (our lives) to effect the rescue of our neighbors.  It is the foundation of a movement to put the fight back in firefighter and bring strong leadership back to the fireground and firehouse.  

Our best insurance policy is a strong base of education and the ability to practically apply knowledge to the appropriate situation.  We have to be functionally intelligent and possess the ability to think on our feet. We must invest in ourselves and be willing to fight for what we believe in.  In order to win the fight, we have to be in the fight.  Being in the fight means doing it on your own and leading from everywhere.

This is not a threat, it's a promise to do our job.  We're not being polite anymore.  We're at the door and we're taking the craft back for ourselves.  The insiders are counting on us to be passive.  They're counting wrong.  If owning our responsibility makes us rogues, then so be it.  

We're the outsiders.  Ready or not, here we come. 

Three Decades of Perspective

By Mark vonAppen

In 1979, after 17 years of coaching football at the high school  and college levels, Fred vonAppen got his first professional coaching job.  He and many others felt as if he had finally arrived.  As he prepared to make the transition to the National Football League (NFL), he was fully aware of the challenges that come with coaching professional athletes.  A man of strong convictions, he swore to himself and to his peers that he would not allow his principles to be compromised.

Professional football would not change Fred vonAppen.

The Idealist

April 10, 1979

"I'll never forget it," said Frederick (Fritz) vonAppen Sr., a retired captain with the Eugene Fire Department, speaking of his son's playing days. "Fred wasn't very big back then, and he came home after the first practice and just went to bed."

But not before getting sick. "Coughing up blood," said Fred Sr. "But Fred wouldn't give up."

He still hasn't.

Tucked into vonAppen's personality, somewhere in there, with his chaw of tobacco, his love of hillbilly music, and his bark-may-be-as-bad-as-his-bite bellowing that characterizes his on field coaching is the determination that kept him from quitting football. And he continued to flourish in his drive for coaching success.

"I aspired to play pro football, but I never thought I'd be coaching at that level. I didn't make it as a player. I hope to do it as a coach," vonAppen said. "I know I'll be dealing with grown men whose motivations differ from individual to individual, men who are in a profession trying to be as good or better than anyone else in the profession."

Change? Not vonAppen. "It's a mistake to compromise yourself."

-Bob Rodman

 Of the Eugene Register-Guard

The Radical

September 4, 1980

When I was a fourth-grader my mom and dad met us at the curb by the front entrance to our school.  My folks rarely picked my sister and me up from school, I mean rarely.  Even on days when the weather was at it's most beastly in Green Bay, Wisconsin - with the wind howling and snow drifts taller than we were - to school we'd walk.  Sometimes we'd arrive and the doors to school would be locked due to snow conditions.  With school closed, we'd climb all over the playground until pins and needles on our noses and cheeks became too bothersome, then we'd trudge the three quarters of a mile back home.

The weather this day was beautiful - the afternoon sky unblemished - my parents met us at the entrance to the school - mom with my baby brother on her hip and dad beside her, arms folded as he leaned against the station wagon.  My parents never came to school together - especially in the fall.  

Dad was usually at work these Autumn days until well past dinner time.  My mom ran the house during football season and to have us assembled in the same spot during daylight hours - unless we were on the practice field - was entirely out of the ordinary.  Even as a 9 year-old I could decypher the semaphore on their faces signaling loud and clear - something wasn't right. 

He took a deep breath in, staring up vacantly at the sky he exhaled, "Hey buddy, I quit my job today."

"Hey guys, let's go," my mother said. Leaning over she kissed us each atop the head.  My folks shepherded us into the car and off we drove.  When the car didn't follow the familiar track to the house, my sister asked in the high, lilting voice of a 6 year-old girl, "Mommy, where are we going?"

"For a walk." dad said. "We need to get away from the house for a while."

Unbeknownst to us kids, a crush of reporters was camped out on our front lawn complete with cameras, notepads, pens, fedoras, and cigars.  They all wanted a piece of my dad. My parents thought it best if we were not subjected to the media circus at our house, so we went for a drive.

We traveled past the prison and over the Fox River Bridge for 15 minutes in relative silence until we reached a park on the fringes of the city.  Dad parked the car.

The creek muttered beside us as we walked through our favorite picnic ground not far from our home, a male and female mallard bobbed with the current.  My father and I split from my mother and siblings - they headed for the swings beyond the picnic area - my dad and I continued along stream.  My dad shuffled down the bank with me, hands in his pockets, head down in preoccupied thought until we reached the spot where I liked to skip stones. 

I grazed the pebbles with my hands as he absent-mindedly swept his foot back and forth helping unearth rocks right for skipping.  Like a gem from the sandy earth I'd glean a skipper, examine it for symmetry, curve my index finger around it, whipping it across the stream I'd count.

"Three..."

I'd rake the ground some more and launch another, "Six..." The rock cracked against a boulder on the opposite bank.

My dad stooped, picked up a flat rock gave it a toss in the air and then fired it in a shallow trajectory just above the water.   It skittered cross the surface and it too ricocheted off a boulder on the opposite bank, a cracking report echoing in the maw of a nearby steel culvert that carried the stream to the opposite side of the highway.

Keeping score I said, "Wow, that was like 10 dad!"

He took a deep breath in, staring up vacantly at the sky he exhaled, "Hey buddy, I quit my job today."

I paused momentarily and then skipping another stone I said, "That was really dumb dad."

September 5, 1980

Fred vonAppen resigned as the Green Bay Packers defensive line coach just three days before the season opener against the Chicago Bears. (Head coach)Bart Starr said vonAppen, one of the teams most popular assistant coaches resigned because of an incident involving one of his players during a 38 - 0 loss to the Denver Broncos on Saturday night.

- Mike Christopulos, The Milwaukee Sentinel

In the fall of 1980 Fred vonAppen quit his job as defensive line coach of the Green Bay Packers over a matter of principle.  His brash move was the culmination of much frustration after repeated attempts at changing a misdirected culture in an organization that was foundering for lack of direction and discipline.  It was an incident involving a hot dog that threatened to derail the career of this talented and fiery young position coach.

Some felt that the head-strong vonAppen acted rashly. However, vonAppen said, "I have no regrets. It's a mistake to compromise yourself."

After his initial season as an NFL assistant coach vonAppen was so troubled by the culture associated with the Packers and was determined to be a catalyst for change.  A strong believer in the team concept, rewarding hard work and dedication, he became disillusioned with the team's lack of discipline, the poor overall work ethic, and lack of direction.  He was bent on driving change in the organization, starting with his men, as he began his second NFL season.  He was uncompromising in his convictions.

VonAppen had been assured by his boss, head coach Bart Starr, that change was on the horizon and they would work as a coaching staff to shift the practices of the organization.  He met with his players and informed them of his intent to change the culture, improve discipline, and instill a firm work ethic.  All the pieces appeared in place to start the revolution.  The world as the Green Bay player's knew it was forever to change.

The writing was on the wall though that changing the culture was going to be a long and difficult task because the organization was blind to the full extent of the problem.  Time and again, disciplinary issues were lightly dealt with, or completely dismissed as insignificant, and the team continued down the loser's path.  VonAppen's frustration with the organization reached a boiling point in the final pre-season game of the 1980 season.

Following a pre-season pasting (38 - 0) at the hands of the Denver Broncos, vonAppen learned that one of his players, Ezra Johnson, had been eating a hot dog on the sideline during the second half. Johnson was a tremendously talented player and a marked under-acheiver with a sizable attitude problem.  Johnson said he didn't mean any disrespect to anyone by his actions.  "I was just hungry," he stated in an interview.  "I didn't wave it around or anything."

"I believe strongly in the principles of team play, and I am not able to compromise the principles I have."

In a meeting the day after the "hot dog incident" between head coach Bart Starr and vonAppen, the defensive line coach was assured that the penalty levied against Johnson would be swift and severe based upon the symbolism and the potential negative impact on the rest of the team.  VonAppen advocated suspending Johnson and went so far as to recommend trading him to another team.  Both Starr and vonAppen agreed that a message needed to be sent. 

In the end, Johnson was fined $1,000 and was required to apologize to his teammates.  The tariff and the apology were not severe enough in vonAppen's opinion.  Johnson was neither suspended nor traded, he was at practice the Monday following the game. 

At the first sign of conflict, and with an opportunity to show commitment to the new way of doing business, the organization did not support the assistant coach or his vision.  Instead, they turned tail and ran.  Feeling betrayed, vonAppen met with his boss and demanded an explanation.  When interviewed on the matter vonAppen said, "I was deeply disappointed and troubled by the symbolism of something like that."  Then he quit saying that he had no hard feelings towards Johnson.  "I am sure that people will think this is extreme, but they don't know all that was involved."

"We didn't need that," Starr said of vonAppen's abrupt departure.  "Fred is a man of high principle.  Principle is one thing, principle without honor is another." 

"That's my personality make-up." vonAppen said.  "I believe strongly in the principles of team play, and I am not able to compromise the principles I have.  So I had to walk."

September 26, 1980

Some people felt that the head-strong vonAppen acted rashly since his resignation came just days before the Packers' season opener against the Chicago Bears. However, vonAppen said he would do the same thing again, "I have no regrets. I quit over a matter of principle. I know the whys and wherefores of what I did."

- Mike Christopulos, The Milwaukee Sentinel

The Pragmatist

Thirty years after the fact, my dad has a different, softened, perspective on the incident.  Beyond the precarious family portion of the story, my father's actions did not create the change  he envisioned.  The team continued its downward spiral (the Packers finished 5 - 10 - 1) and when all was said and done, he was unemployed. 

Nobody won.

Stories such as this can help those of us who are frustrated with their organizations - the bureaucracy, the pettiness, the lack of vision - find the perspective to carry on in a less confrontational manner knowing that in time that battle that you wanted so much to win was inconsequential to the outcome of the war.  Taking a hard stand on principle is admirable, and for a short period of time it may steel some people in your corner, but as days and weeks and months go by these overt acts polarize and divide an organization and make the individual appear to be a loose cannon. 

I can hear myself in the quotes contained on the yellowed pages of the articles written thirty years ago.  I think all of those who hit the road in search of "the way" will smirk as they hear themselves in my father's words.  It's the same circus with different clowns no matter the occupation.  Somewhere in a cubicle farm inside a nondescript office building in Any Town, USA some anonymous worker - toiling his life away in his tiny cube - is at odds with his boss waging a similar war based on principle.  Or maybe it's a firehouse, and instead of a football field it is the drill ground.

"In the end, I quit my job, making a stand for what I believe in and nothing really changed."

My old man is not a quitter.  When I speak with him now about the days when he quit his job with the Green Bay Packers, he is much more pragmatic in his assessment of how his actions affected everyone involved.  After he quit his job, he had no money coming in, a wife and children to feed, and a mortgage.  "You can't feed a family on principle," he said.  "If you quit, the organization may pause momentarily to witness the display, but it will move on without you and all that will be remembered - forever - is that you lost your cool and gave up."  Reckless actions aimed at revolution may make a big splash, but most times the ripples don't shift the sands of the intended shore. 

"In the end, I quit my job, making a stand for what I believe in and nothing really changed.  Would I do it again?  I don't know, but at the time, when I was much younger and more idealistic it seemed like the only move I could make.  Would I jeopardize my family's security and my career that way again?  Looking back on it, probably not."

We cannot go through our career throwing our hands in the air and giving up when things don't go our way.  Time has a way of rendering jagged edges supple.  It also has a way of softening our perspective, making us less prone to impulsive decisions.  The courage and perseverance that it takes to drive positive change and influence a cultural shift is much less spectacular than the story of one who quits in a fit of passion.  The long road to change is not the spectacle of the former, but is nonetheless a mix of triumph and tragedy.

I am every bit my father's son.  I am quick to anger, motivated by passion, I have my principles - we all do - and there have been many times when I have been tempted to ring out from being monumentally frustrated and exhausted from jumping through hoops and over hurdles.  I don't know what the keys to success are necessarily, but I know the quickest route to failure is trying to please everyone. 

Passion, patience, and perseverance are the keys to driving positive change.

There is a difference between compromise and being compromised.  Compromise is an agreement or a settlement of a dispute by two sides making concessions.  Compromised is to weaken a reputation or principle by accepting standards that are lower than what is considered acceptable.  It is possible to compromise on an issue without compromising your principles. 

Change what you can change and put the rest aside in the short term.  The big battles will still be there when you get back, better to chip away at them over time than to try to break off a large piece all at once.  The burden you bear will lessen, and your river of personal pessimism will recede because you will witness the positive fruits of your labor in the development of others around you.  

We have to find the thing that drives us most and stick with it. Passion, patience, and perseverance are the keys to driving positive change.  It is patience that makes us choose to work for what we want most versus what we want right now.  Slow, steady, and consistent wins the race.  Stick with it, whatever it might be.  If you don't, you will be forever left with the ache and wonder of what could have been.  You can't make the change if you are not there.

The choice is yours.