Lessons From My 23 Year Old Self

I recently discovered something I wrote exactly 6 years ago yesterday. It's reminded me of more than a few things, and along with what I recently write, makes me believe that the time is now. For everything...

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I am not sure where this is heading. Please forgive the wandering, please forget the rest. I want to introduce you all to a guy that I am only recently beginning to meet. Myself.

I am a very confused man. Sure, I know which direction cars come from, know that the hot water is on the left, heck I even how to keep score in tennis. But that stuff comes easy to me.

I remember all the lessons I learned. They were taught by magical and majestic people, like mom, dad, and Mr. Rogers. Big Bird. Sometimes the even came from Easy Reader or Gary Gnews. I remember that no gnews is good gnews without Gary Gnews. Like I said, those lesson were easy.

One day I woke up and everything was differernt. My friends no longer found friday night basketball sessions exciting. Math had letters in it. Girls were fun to be around. I could touch the ground when I was on a swingset.

That last one hurt the most. All of a sudden one day, out of the blue, there it was right beneath me. The ground. everyone told me it had alwasy been there. But it never seemed so close. How little did I know.

You know I got my first true lesson in life that day. As you get older you can't let your feet drag. You gotta keep them moving. If you ever wanna go anywhere in life that's the way it has to be. Life moves itself, but it won't move you. Life will make you grow taller, it'll make you gain weight, but it won't push you onward.

And life moved on, and I moved on, and one day baseball wasn't fun anymore. Like puberty it didn't happen all at once, just a little at a time. There is nothing more frightening to a 10 year old then pitching with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 6th. And nothing scars worse than being sweared at by the other teams parents. Pressure becomes an old friend to us as we grow older, but I think it first introduced itself to me 60 feet 6 inches from being a loser.

I look back at myself and think that A 10 year old is a fascinating thing. It's too young for the US Senate, too young for NBA ball, and too young to control its own destiny. Unfortunately, It is not too young to know right from wrong and thus we suffer another lesson in life. A 10 year old on the mound is cursed for no other reason but the difference in our uniform. No, it is not an introduction to racism, sexism, or homophobia. But then again, how different is it? Any way you look at it, you are being judged for something that is beyond your control and should not define you. And you must learn to accept that. Pretty heavy for someone who still hasn't seen an R rated movie, huh?

So life continues and you find yourself at a party, unsupervised, for the first time. A 13 year olds hormones can be erratic. Similar to how Saddam Hussein behaved in some ways. No matter how irrational or ill timed, no matter how costly or how destructive, hormones go on the offensive. And thus we have no defense in this war. It is all first strike. So when someone suggests Spin the Bottle its a race to chug the rest of the Jolt and position yourself strategically.

Bottles turn and turn and sometimes they even land on you. One day one of the people beside you might be the captain of the cheerleaders or the class president...or maybe it'll land on a person who will always be remembered for chewing on crayons. It is the luck of the draw and you begin to realize that life is often nothing more than chance.

And in those moments comes an introduction to lust. Lust is the next lesson, not love. No matter how you slice it, the people that spoke of love in the 8th grade are the people who became parents in th 10th grade. Some would toss the word about frivolously, as if is was just marker on a craftpaper valentine. The word love is a weapon wielded by teenagers with a limited arsenal. And yet, its funny how much damage one very small pistol can make.

As this game of lust progressed, some found themselves in closets, etc. Lust is about proving yourself. Nothing more. It is about conquering inner demons (insecurity), outer demons (peer pressure), and universal demons (hormones). So we make out with people we don't care about. We are left with great stories for our friends. A bit of confidence for the future. And without blue balls. That is all lust accomplishes in the present. And in the future, what of lust? How we deal in lust is a matter of how we choose to gamble, for the moment we succumb to the thoughts that occupy us so, we make a wager between mind and body over who we are and where the future lies.

And so on and so forth into High School. Chemistry class...Experimentation. Beer, Liquor, Pot, Acid, Shrooms, PCP, Crystal Meth, Whip its, Crackers, etc. Just how experimental are you? In the name of science, where do you draw the line? And where do you draw others line? Getting drunk is cool...but people who get stoned are fucked up. Stoners rock, but trippers are wack. Who made you so judgemental? You sit on the beach philosophizing about this with my friend, til he decides to climb the lifeguards stand. When he reaches the top step of the ladder he stumbles and falls. Hard. And you say nothing. He laughes. Life goes on. He was messed, he did something stupid. He was sober and tripped. How big a difference is there between clumsiness and drug abuse?

We are all different sizes...like ladders. Some of us have more steps than others. It doesn't make those people better, it just means they have more steps. Some people only have a beer step. Some have beer and alcohol. Some have pot. And so on. And so lesson comes from when we reach our top step. Cause you should never, ever stand on the top step of a ladder. And if you must, then make sure someone holds the ladder. They may be your only safety net.

And then college. You learn many lessons there. For me, I learned that on 1st and goal, run towards James Fallon. This can be interpretted many ways. It also means that you should stain your carpet with champaign. It means you should punch holes in walls and glass objects. You should wind up over the toilet heaving. You should date lesbians and hook up with friends. You should leave 25 page papers til the last second. And you should walk like Bernie from "weekend at Bernie's" at least once a year.

This lesson is so simple we should have learned it when we were 6. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Trust me, you'll learn from them, and they'll give you some great memories to boot. Mistakes are not failures, not flaws, and not fuck ups. Well maybe fuckups. Mistakes are the way that we keep ourselves in check. To build a meaningful life, the best tool under your belt is the knowledge we gain from mistakes.

And now. 23 years old. Let me describe myself to you. I am a paradox.

I am the winds off the ocean on a May evening. Cool enough to calm you, warm enough to keep you comfortable. I am the surprise X-mas gift that your parents stuck behind the couch. I surprise you when you least expect it, yet you didn't actually think the gifts were done before I was found, did you? I am the 90 Fleer Sosa that you'll find one day in a shoebox. Most never thought to put it aside, but those who did won't find one with bent corners.

23 years old. A learned man. Tries not to drag his feet. Realizes life's hardships, knows the difference between love and lust, an expert ladder climber, but isn't afraid to make mistakes. A learned man who is still learning.

Full of hope in the heart, full of doubt in the mouth. Understanding to women, not of women. Willing to mix alcohol, but won't smoke up anymore cause its bad for you.

The paradox that is me will always exist. Its an asset, I think.

So why did I begin this? Boredom? Confusion? A need for expression? A feeling that those out there might agree? All great answers. Or maybe the reason is simply the one thing to always keep in mind about life. The one lesson to remember.

There aren't answers for everything. Get used to it.

Dreams and Paychecks

Coloring in my latest Star Wars coloring book, intent on staying within the lines, but failing miserably, my grandfather asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Brash and unaware of the genetic and emotional limitations born of Jewish heritage, I announced that I would play first base for the Mets. The next day, coloring in that same book, my grandfather asked me to tell my grandmother what I wanted to be when I grew up. Brash and unaware of the impending asthmatic conditions I would eventually succumb to, I proudly stated that I would become a firefighter. The following day, clearing seeing a pattern here, my grandfather asked me again what I wanted to be when I grew up. Brash and unaware of how little they were paid, but fascinated by the bright color yellow that I had been using to color Chewbacca, I announced that one day I would be a taxi driver.

Twenty odd years later and I'm about as decisive about what I want to when I grow up as that brash little boy with the 64 box of Crayola crayons and the dreams to match.

So here I am at a career crossroads, without a map, without directions, and feeling like the light on my gas tank is flashing. But how did I get here?

It took a great deal of thought to realize that I got lost through simple miscommunication. You see, for the most part I've driven along this thing called life with the car on cruise control. But every once in a while, I'll buck the philosophical faux-paus that my gender has put forth, that one cannot be lost if they do not ask for directions. So anyways, I'll be driving along, with the turn fast approaching, and I'll ask if I need to turn left. Whoever is riding shotgun in this analogy will say right, meaning correct. I'll then turn right and get just a little bit more lost.

And that pretty much sums up how well I've handled my so-called career to date. I leave the directions to someone else, I misunderstand where I need to go, and I make impulsive and incorrect decisions. It's really a wonder I haven't hit someone. And you can take that literally and figuratively.

So with another job frustration, another disappointment, and the prospect of yet another soul searching staring me in the face, I've begun to try and find myself. Again. Man, I tell you, if this keeps up, I'm going to lo-jack myself.

So why now? How did I get here?

I find that I've become too easily defined by what I do, and less by who I am. In some cultures it is actually quite rude to ask one what they do for a living, for it implies that their worth is dicated by their job. As I live in America where rudeness is a freedom granted to us by the Bill of Rights, or by God, depending upon which political party is in power, I am often forced to confront the awkwardness of answering that question. After much practice lately, I've managed to keep my answers to either:

a) I work in non-profit (This makes me seem altruistic, idealistic, and many other -istics that are admirable in the eyes of popular perception.)
b) I work in non-profit, but I do freelance writing on the side (This makes me seem just as altruistic and such, as well as showing my energetic and creative side to those who know the truth about the fact that slackers hide in unions and non-profits.)
c) Ooh, are those mini hot dogs? (While this might make me seem hungry and focused solely on the hors-d'oeurves, it deflects attention masterfully because let's be honest when you see the mini hot dogs, nothing else is really matters anymore right?)

It seems so obvious that we are worth more than what we do to pay the bills, but I think I get caught up in the game of comparative jobs and salaries with my friends too much. I think we all do. But shouldn't we be above this kind of behavior? At this point in our lives, aren't we more mature? Aren't we above this? Having come to this realization, I vow to now answer that question with one of the following:

a) I am currently evaluating my mission in life, knowing that despite my current state of unemployment, I am happily married to the love of my life and enjoying more sex than I could possibly imagine. Why don't you have a girlfriend?
b) With the incredible support of the love of my life, I recently left an unsatisfying job and am currently writing my first novel. I also work out 5 times a week. Why are you so fat and lazy?
c) Ooh, are those mini hot dogs? (Hey, if they're there the line still works.)

But going on the offensive still won't help me address the problem that I can't seem to put my finger on. And getting beyond my own insecurities about how people view me is not enough.

I need to come to terms with my own inability to view the trapping of my life. Like most, I've viewed the idea that dollars make sense, in that the more I make, the more successful I must be. In addition, I've come to view praise for my work as the ultimate validation of my choice of careers. This is a very slippery slope to encounter because the fact that one is talented has absolutely no baring on whether they enjoy what they do. When you combine the two it is a volatile mix, as while failure at what you desire to achieve is bad, success at what you don't desire is downright dangerous.

How did I arrive at where I am today? Competence in lazy environments that apparently have an overabundance of money to throw at people who can only summon up surface interest in heir jobs. Ah, America land of the free, home of the naïve.

Recently, I found myself at Barnes & Nobles, enjoying a nice gingerbread latte from Starbucks and wandering through the self-help section. I was thinking to myself, what should I do with my life, when the answer appeared to be staring me right in the face. The book was called, What Should I Do With My Life? I walked on by thinking, I wish I could get a sign from God, when all of a sudden I had an amazing impulse to turn around.

I had left my coffee behind.

That is when it all clicked and I realized that I should take heed of this obvious heavenly hint, so I purchased the book, and thanked my stars that I was not standing in the horror section. I also began thinking about how awesome it would be to win the lottery. 28 10 1 7 9 88. I'm expected big things on Wednesday.

Now, as for the book, Po Bronson's What Should I Do with My Life? records several people's epiphanic experiences of uprooting themselves from unsatisfactory careers and starting over. It is so pitch perfect that it made my skin crawl at times, but I think that Bronson hit home hardest when he described what he called, "The Brilliant Masses."

Now before you think I'm getting all full of myself, thinking I'm brilliant and stuff, keep in mind all of what I've accomplished in my life. Keep in mind that I somehow convinced a woman way too good for me to marry me. Keep in mind that I have a 60inch flat panel HD TV. And keep in mind that I did all of this without the cream or the clear. Then once you've done this, just give me the benefit of the doubt since I wrote so much already.

“The Brilliant Masses are composed of nothing less than the many great people of our generation, the bright, the talented, the intelligent, the resourceful, and the creative - far too many of whom are operating at quarter speed, unsure of their place in the World, contributing far too little to the productive engine of modern civilization, still feeling like observers, all feeling like they haven't come close to living up to their potential."

Sounded pretty darn close to how I was feeling when I first read it. Especially when I began to think about where my place in the productive engine of our society is. You see, since my entry to the real world, I've worked in two places, commercial production and non-profit fund-raising. This means everything that I have accomplished since college is tied to selling products that you don't need to you and guilting you into donating money to those in need. It was at this point that I realized that I may, in fact, be the most highly organized person in the history of mankind who is responsible for cluttering other people's lives. But wait it gets better.

"The Brilliant Masses are mostly intellectually motivated, so if they cross over and get involved, their commitment is conditioned on being respected, and on a minimum of unnecessary idiocy, and on winning/succeeding. They like being cerebral. In their tribes it's cool."

Of everything he wrote, this not only touched, it almost severed the greatest nerve with me. Every choice I've made has been intellectually motivated, even if they were not thought through with at a third grade level or above. My problem is that rather than seek out the problems that I want to solve, I've lost myself in challenges that others have deemed my involvement necessary. With a minimum of exaggeration, I will share that every workplace I have ever been a member of has turned to me as either a vital cog, or in some extreme cases, as a savior. And while one might assume that this kind of ego stroking comes with respect, I can assure you that that is not the case. In fact, the driving force behind every workplace problem that I have encountered is that excellence leads to a conditioned level of high expectance, which for some unbelievable reason seems to lead to being taken for granted, and thus to a massive level of idiocy and disrespect.

Reading this I began to wonder why, if I thought of myself as such a cerebral person, I tended to be led more often by my heart than by my head. I realized that the absence of passion in my life has led my actions to be dictated by logic. That is why I find it more logical to make money doing something that I hate than to take a chance on an unknown urge of some romanticized dream. This is why I wind up in places for brief, yet extended periods of time, working hard and successfully, and burning out rapidly. This is why I find myself continually lost, as I feel with my heart and I lead with my head.

This is probably also why I am much better at helping my friend's with their love lives than I ever was with my own.

I realize now that my working life has become so devoid of passion, as to numb me into believing that I have no other choices. I realize that my successes should be a small indicator of just how much promise a future that I desire cold hold and not an indictment of where I should remain. I realize that turning 29 does not make me too old to seek out a dream, even one that hasn't been dreamt yet. And that the thought of turning 30 while dwelling on that same fact seems too frightening a concept to accept.

In his book, Bronson continues to say:

"Being guided by the heart is almost never something an intellectually motivated person chooses to do. It's something that is thrust upon them, usually by something painful."

Once again I find myself guided by my heart, despite my heads best attempts. Perhaps this situation was born of the pain of a job's disrespect, perhaps it was born of the stress of shouldering expectations that seem so enormous, or perhaps this was born of my own selfish desire to find reason and mission, and not simply a job.

So how did I get here? I got here because it took me 29 years to realize that my grandfather never laughed at what I wanted to be when I grew up. He saw a little boy who drew outside the lines and had dreams that matched. He never laughed at that boy and neither should I.