Nope not a typing error. I did not doze off with my finger on the letter “D”. The title of this story is DDDD – Don’t Die Desperate Dummy.
What I write is for me its for fun, gets my ideas out of my head that torment me in my sleep and my daily commute. I always joke with Rosie when she sees me talking to myself, I say “I am having a staff meeting with the 6 other voices in my head, we all think we are in charge.” I can’t complete a full thought verbally anymore without ending that thought with “Ain’t that crazy.” So I write what I want to say and will continue to until I end every blog with “Ain’t that crazy” then I will turn to mime. My intentions (we will get back to my disdain for that word “intentions”) are to gather everything I have written, from Facebook posts to these blogs and research how to publish them into a short story format. This is my “intentions.”
I say my intentions because reading is a commitment. I like audio books because I have the concentration of a dog in a squirrel farm and cannot commit to forcing myself to read through boring ass dialogue just to get to a good part that at times does not turn out so good. It even kills me to proof read my own stories after I am done writing them. Yes, I am still a child who likes to be read to. Reading print puts me to sleep and in reality reading a book is shunned upon when driving 80 mph down the turnpike where most of my commute takes place, an audible book so far has proven harmless.
Back on track, see, boring ass dialogue to get to the point of this story. I recently asked my son Niko to list his goals. He is young enough to pursue goals, accomplish them before its too late, old enough to understand why this is important, and smart enough to know why this matters, “Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.”
Society expectations are as follows: school, play a sport, do well in school so you can get into and graduate college, find and pursue a career path, get a cubicle, commute to cubicle, bitch about the cubicle and how you deserve an office, meet a nice person, date, get engaged, marry, have kids, buy a house, commute further everyday to the cubicle you hate, increase debt, pay bills, get out of the cubicle and move to an office – you’re pissed you really wanted the corner office, apply for that other job where you hope you will be appreciated (repeat multiple times), commute home, stress about bills, credit cards, mortgage, car payments, braces, sports, how do you get that corner office, why can’t I sleep, and why the hell are my pants and shirts getting so tight!!! (Give me a minute I need to catch my breath…)
My path in life was very similar to the aforementioned life-script which was probably chipped into stone hundreds of years ago. School, work, marry, kids, house, commute, financial stress…I skipped college and wound up in hospitality. NOW, before you begin the internal opinions “if you had gone to college, you would’ve…” I barely graduated high school, there was NO way college would’ve lit a fire under my ass and triggered a personal epiphany that I now have the patience and attention to study. Remember opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and yours stinks just like everyone else’s. As a 51 year old man, I now look back and think regardless of whether I write good or bad, you like it or you don’t, I should have pursued writing. Short stories, kids stories, erotic stories (creepy I put that next to kids stories) I should’ve just kept writing until something connected. I love my life, but there were/are times of desperation.
Joe Rogan talks about desperation in one of his podcasts, how people who have followed what the expectations of society are can easily fall into a downward spiral of feeling desperate, worrying about bills, mortgage, a job, family…etc. We abandon our dreams and goals because if we decide one day to try stand-up comedy or strive to be a musician people who have followed the protocol of expectations will say “there is no money in that”, “what if you fail”, “there is no future” so we give up or worse don’t even try. We literally GIVE UP on our dreams, on ourselves! That is (excuse my language) the proverbial mindf*ck!
Humor me, circle ’round kids its imagination story time: Sally and Bob follow societies life-script, they have a son, Fred. Fred does well in school, plays sports, excels, gets into a great college, graduates, gets a great job making $80k per year, works 60 hours per week for a company who refers to him as ADP Payroll #23456789. Fred’s best friend is Ted, Ted was a cut-up in class, was smart, but his head was filled with creative ideas, always jotting notes, always making his friends laugh, has a knack and passion for music and entertainment. Sally and Bob love Ted, they ask him prior to HS graduation “whats your future after school Ted, any college acceptance letters?” Ted responds “No, I am going to do some open mic stand-up, focus on my music, start a podcast about nonsense, my first guest is Fred!” Sally and Bob snicker, scoff and proceed to tell Ted “looks like you’ll be borrowing money from Fred!” However Ted’s parents tell Ted, “Follow your dreams, you need to work so you have some money so you are not homeless if you fail a few times until you get it right, but every extra available hour you need to work on marketing, executing, revising, revisiting and re-executing if necessary your dreams until you don’t ever have to worry about working in a “job” again.”
Fast forward 10 years, Fred is reflecting how he ‘went to school, played a sport, did well in school so he could get into and graduate college, found a career path, pursued it, got a cubicle, bitched about the cubicle and how he deserves an office, met a nice person, dated, got engaged, married, had kids, bought a house, commutes further everyday to the cubicle he hates, pays bills, increased his debt, got out of the cubicle and moved to an office, he is pissed because he really wanted the corner one, applies for other jobs where he hopes he will be appreciated (he’s repeated this multiple times), commutes home, stresses about bills, credit cards, mortgage, car payments, braces, sports, how do I get that corner office, why can’t I sleep, when the hell did my pants and shirts get so tight!!!’ (Air I need air!) Fred is reflecting this while watching Ted talk to celebrities on his wildly popular, sometimes controversial podcast, discussing all sorts of worldly topics, including plugging his upcoming comedy tour dates, how he filled in as a studio drummer for (enter famous band – I can’t think of any) last album and how he is adding his 10th food truck to his fleet this week. Fred gets a text from Ted, “Sup OG! Flying charter to Costa Rica Thursday for a long weekend for some fishing, booze and fun…leave at 3pm, pick you up at UNO!?!?” To which Fred responds, with sigh of desperation, “No can do Amigo, staff meeting at 4pm Thursday, interview on Friday for that new firm we discussed, Fred Jr. has soccer all day Saturday, Sunday I have my to do list the wife gave me.” Ted responds as always “Maybe next time OG.” Fred convinces himself he is not jealous and is happy for Ted.
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH FRED’S LIFE! It is a good life that many, HELL the majority of people have chosen it, I did. It is a great, normal, sought after, rewarding life to many. A lot of people do not have debt, they work hard, skyrocket to the top of companies, their extended education has assisted them to far exceed their school mates and peers. But imagine, just for one moment, you put that energy in something you always wanted to do! Your dream, you made that your goal, and put the same energy in it that societies life-script expects of us and you were fishing right now in Costa Rica like Ted.
I laugh at people who get incensed over sports, they watch football, baseball, or any sport of their choice and yell at the TV or yell at these athletes who are living out their dreams who are making millions of dollars doing what they dreamed of always doing. These very same people who are yelling at these athletes (who pursued and are living their dreams), watch their kid do the very same thing these athletes are doing, but when their kid says “My coach says I am the best on the team, I want to play pro ball.” 9.99999 times out of 10 we say “You have a 1 in a million chance of that” “stop living in a dream world”, “go to school get a good job.” What if you said “Cool, lets find someone to talk to who can give us a real feel of what this takes.” That is probably what Derek Jeter’s mom and dad said, same as the Mannings and if you ever get the chance read about Shaquille O’Neal, you want inspiration, he exemplifies the word! There are corporate dreamers too, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, they all took a chance and succeeded but they are billionaires and still work 100 hours per week. No thanks to the 100 hour work weeks, yes please to the billions!
Intentions…that very word makes me more enraged then Eli Manning throwing a homerun pitch to Lebron James! (Can you tell I don’t watch sports.) I despise intentions, “Next week I am going to watch what I eat.” why not make changes today, “Come the New Year I am going to start exercising” why not take a walk today, “I want to follow my dreams and start a podcast” find something to talk about and start one today! Having intentions is good, commitment and consistency are where the real battle lies. DDDD, Don’t Die Desperate Dummy do not have intentions of fulfilling your dreams and goals, find the will, find the way, failing once does not mean give up, it means revise, revisit, re-execute until you get it right. Remember the quote I put in the beginning of this story ‘Do what you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.’ That does not sound so bad to me, follow your dreams and DDDD! Ain’t that crazy.
#Adulting 