Completely Open: What's it all REALLY about.

I am 34 years old this year.  I have worked many jobs in many fields; blue collar, white collar, and everything in between.  I have loved, lost, and loved again.  I have witnessed the birth of my two boys, which were two of the single greatest moments of my life to this point.  I have lost people I knew or loved and I have seen people I knew hit by tragedy and incredibly hard times, especially in the last few years.  In short, I have lived a pretty average life to this point. 

But when I look back at the last 16 years ( I was not really an adult until 18) and think about the choices I made and the path I took the one thing that stands out to me is that it was safe.  Sure I had hard times and struggled, but by and large I never in my life took a risk.  I never said Fuck it and went after something I was interested in, consequences be damned.  No I always played it safe.




I graduated high school and was undecided as to what I wanted to do with my life.  My father stepped in and helped me land a pretty well paying job at a foundry.  I remained there for 6 years or so, moving up and around the plant to different jobs.  During the latter year or so there I went to college.  I decided I wanted out of foundry work and wanted to pursue my passion of film making. 

I ended up enrolling at a local university and two years in realized the program there was not for me.  They wanted more artsy non-narrative films, while I was interested in narrative film.  At that point I was at a crossroads.  There was another school in a different state that had a top notch film program with great opportunities.  I read over the program from said school, even visited the campus.  It all looked very promising.

You know how they talk about those moments in life that define you.  Well this was one of those for me. At that moment I had two options: I could choose to pursue my passion at a great school, one that could take me where I want to go or I could remain at the university I was at and pursue a different field of study. 

My girlfriend at the time wanted to stay here.  She had just bought a house and was in the midst of repairing and remodeling it at the time.  She needed my help and objected to me leaving to pursue an education at the out of state school.  Now this kind of paints her as a bitch in some ways, a fair assessment I suppose.  But the choice to stay or leave was always mine.  Always. 

I ultimately decided to stay here and remain at the school I started at.  I changed my major to English, with an emphasis in Creative Writing.  English studies were something I did well in.  I got good marks in my English classes and my advisor felt it was the easiest field of study for me to slide into from film.  While I enjoyed my time as an English student, the truth is that I never had the same passion for it as I did film.  I could only work up enough excitement to appear enthused, but it was never quite the same. 

I graduated 5 years later with high marks in the major.  But without one crucial thing: a job.  I choose to remain at the insurance sales job I had worked in while in school for many months after graduation.  Until, my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) got pregnant with our first child.

This single event altered the course of my life in many ways, as having a child always tends to do.  One thing it did was to force me to ask for more from my boss at the insurance company I worked for, mainly benefits for my child and myself.  You see all the other agents there had full benefits but me, as I had been part time to that point and time.  She declined my request and promptly fired me.  There is more to that story, but it seems foolish to get into it on here, trust me.

The long and the short of it was that I was unemployed, with a baby on the way.  I searched for many months and ended up back in insurance working for another company.  A job which I am still at to this day. 

That is a very brief overview of my life since age 18.  Of course there was much more that occurred than what the three or four paragraphs above contain.  But those meager three of four paragraphs show my career and life choices made over that time period and also establish a pattern of behavior.  The pattern found in all of that time is me not being willing to take a risk and make a choice that could lead to failure.  This is my single greatest flaw as a human being.  I am scared, a coward, a chicken shit.  I am unable to take the risks necessary to be successful and happy.  No, I rather stay put in a career going no where and a job that does not meet my needs. 

I would rather write hundreds of story ideas, outlines, character profiles, and the such and dream of someday when they lead to a successful novel, screenplay, or short story.  I would rather call myself a writer than actually try and be one.

I would rather read film sites, and watch endless movies, study the craft of filmmaking than actually write about film or make a movie of my own.   

I am a coward.  Plain and simple.  And that my friends is one of the reasons for this post. 

Life is such a fleeting thing.  It is so temporary, so fragile like a newborn baby or a single snowflake. The music of life can end in an instant.  For whatever reason I have been preoccupied as of late with my own mortality.  It is not along the lines of when I would die or how, but rather with what my legacy on this world will be.  What will I leave behind for those I love?  How will I be remembered? 

You see we have it all wrong in America.  We define our success and worth in the world by the amount of objects we accumulate, the money in our bank accounts, and our position socially within the companies and peer groups we work for and interact in.  But money is not the definition of success.  Money and great wealth simply give you more freedom and provide you with more choices.  But it is and always will be the choices that matter.  The actions you take define you, not the wealth you accumulate. 

With that said, I am in a postion, like many of you, where I am quite poor and often struggle simply to make ends meet.  My wife and I both have massive student loans which will take many years to pay down.  We have daycare bills and medical bills, and bills of all shapes and sizes.  So while I feel that my actions will define me, I also know in the back of my mind that I am the provider for my family.  Being such, money is a constant concern of mine and earning more one of my main objectives. 

What I am saying with that is that I cannot judge those who pursue wealth, as I do it myself.  I can admit my hypocracy and know I pursue the almighty dollar as well.  But the difference is that wealth or the lack thereof does not define me.  I know if I were to achieve great wealth, I would certainly make the right choices in terms of how to use it for the betterment of those around me. 

At this juncture in my life I have come to the conclusion that taking risks have to become part of the game for me career wise.  I grant that being the primary wage earner in my household means I can't take as great of risks.  But I still can take some.  Dreaming needs to turn into action.  The coward never finds fulfilment or success. 

I am fed up with being a failure and not achieving the levels of success that I know I am capable of.  It is not ok for me any longer to remain behind a desk selling insurance and barely making ends meet.  It is not ok I can never afford to take a real vacation, that I can't buy a house, or afford to replace or repair a vehicle when it breaks down.  It is no longer ok for me to remain lazy and passive, all the while allowing life to zoom past me. 

Again, life is too short.  No, I am going to break this endless cycle of laziness and fear that has caused me to remain stagnant.  In its place will be a commitment to living and to pursuing things I have a passion for and things that I would love to do for a living. 

When I watch my wife work on her design boards or anything related to her interior design classes, I see the passion in her eyes and the energy she brings to it.  She loves what she does right now and will no doubt be very successful and happy when she finally gets into the interior design field. 

That is the key- be passionate about what you do.  I want that and am going to pursue it with everything I have got. 

The other thing is- take risks.  When I read story after story of successful people from all walks of life, the one thing that is common among them is that they were willing to take risks.  Sometimes the risks they took did not work out.  But invariably in the end they landed in the job they were meant to and are happy and successful doing it. 

So to me taking a risk to go after something I am passionate about is a good one.  Even if I do not end up where I think I will, I know I will still be happier than I am now. 

The last key for me right now is- to volunteer more and reach out to those around me who need my help.  This is the other very important idea of mine after doing what you love.  We were all placed here on Earth to help one another.  It is our duty to help those who need it in the world.  That is something I personally have failed to do and very much wish to change. 

Again, life is too short.  Going forward from this blog post I am going to take the risks necessary for me to get where I belong in life.  I will worry less, if at all about, the mone as it will come when pursuing what you are passionate about. 

So to recap:  Life (to me and specifically my life) is now about three things: 1) Work in a field of job that I love. 2) Take more risks in life.  3) Help others and reach out to those who need my help. 

Those people around us are important and should be treated as such.  Our dreams are important as well and should be nurtured and embraced at all costs.

Today begins a new chapter for me in my life.  One that will, in my heart, lead to greater success and happiness.  The days of the coward are over.  This is my manifesto.  It should be yours too.