So, my good buddy Tim recently wrote a post about jobs that he would love to have.
I’m not going to bite his style and do the same thing (I already did that in a comment on his post! GO ME), but I’m just going to do what I normally do in this blog: rant about things for a while.
I’ve had a lot of ideas for “dream jobs” in my life. When I was about 6 years old, I wanted so badly to own a pizzeria. My reasoning for this was twofold: one was that even at a young age, I was fascinated by cooking since I loved food so much. But the second, and more prominent, reason for this was so that “I could eat all the free pizza I wanted.”
So, basically, my dream job was to go into debt from eating all of my own pizza. Well, at least it’d be a tasty way to enter the world of bankruptcy!
For a while after that I mentally went from dream job to dream job: Video Game Tester, Video Game Designer, Chef, Inventor, Guy Who Gets Paid for Eating Lots of Tasty Things, etc. I didn’t actually create any practical ways of achieving these dream jobs though. I just sort of liked the idea of inventing, so I said I wanted to be an inventor without knowing the first thing about it, and without taking any steps towards it.
While I had my head in these unattainable clouds, I would also have “real jobs” lined up. This meant that while I was growing up, if any adult asked me what I wanted to be when I was older, I would have an answer ready for them. “Eat pizza all day!!!” only held up so long until I was expected to start seriously thinking about my future.
So these “real jobs” ranged from Lawyer, Doctor, Software Engineer…you know, all the things kids say to adults (save for the latter, which stems from my nerdiness).
Then came a time when I was 14 years old when I started to have dream jobs in fields that were possible (albeit unpractical) for me to enter. The change came when I started skateboarding. I wanted to be [drumroll] a professional skateboarder.
All I did from the ages of 14 to 18 was skateboard. It’s all I did, watched, and dreamt about. I was obsessed. I still told my parents that after high school I would go to college to become a Software Engineer, but all the while my real plan was to just keep skating and eventually go pro.
Reality hit when I graduated High School. I hated high school, and only had about 4 friends or so. I’d wager to say only about 20 people in my graduating class of 950 even knew I existed. And out of those 20, only the aforementioned 4 would consider me a friend. I coasted through under the radar. I got good grades, but didn’t pay attention to that. I applied to only one college (since I secretly didn’t even want to go at all), and got in. So, the ball was rolling towards my practical career path.
I went through a bit of internal turmoil at this point in my life. I realized I honestly had no desire whatsoever to be a Software Engineer. Sure, I liked computers, and there was a time in the mid-90s where my friend Greg and I would program our little hearts away all night long, making all sorts of programs (some useful, most not); but the real issue was I couldn’t see this being my life. I lost track of any sort of Software Engineering skills once I started skateboarding.
After I graduated High School, I was in a band with my very good friend Adam Mancuso. We were called Adam’s Apples and we wrote thrash punk songs about Nintendo games and chairs revolting against people sitting on them.
Clearly, we were destined for success!
All I wanted to do at this point in my life was skateboard and play music. However, I started to drift away from the friends that I had skated with in High School; and while Adam had an interest in skating, he and I were at such different levels that I stopped challenging myself so that we could skate at places he could skate at too: parking lots and the like. I started just staying stagnant.
But I was ok with that, because my desire to go pro was starting to wane while my desire to make my career out of music or my writing started to take the forefront. So when I was just starting college, I’d be damned if I didn’t become a musician or a writer. It was my only life goal I tells ya!
I kept going to college, mostly because I felt that I had to. Then, when I was about 20 years old, another change started to take place.
I started to, for possibly the first time, seriously consider why I was going to college. I still wrote music and poetry, but I realized I was absolutely fine with not making it my career, and instead just keeping it as something I do and show my friends and loved ones.
So, I decided to major in English. I figured it’s got writing at its core, so it couldn’t be too bad. For a while, I thought I’d go through all the ranks necessary to be an English Professor. I didn’t want to teach anything below college level, because then there’s that element of discipline that becomes a necessary part of your job.
I went through all of this, and finally got my degree. And…well, here I am. I still have the same job I had for the last 2 years of getting my degree (Human Resources Assistant). For a while, I was somewhat upset at this. I felt that my entire college experience ended up being what I feared it would be when I graduated High School: useless.
For a while I thought maybe grad school was the answer. I had a couple more careers I thought I might enjoy: Librarian, Editor, Guy Who Gets Paid for Eating Lots of Tasty Things. But the more I looked into these, the less interesting they seemed. I felt like I would just end up in the same position I was in now.
It was late last year (2007, in case this stands the test of time!) that I hit my latest, and possibly final, realization when it came to my job. And this hit me like a ton of bricks that my six year old self threw forward in time at me.
I realized that for as long as I can remember, the thing that made me the happiest was the idea of having my own family. Yes, yes, I know, it’s cliché. And you could argue that the classic 50’s “American Dream” is outdated, and irresponsible given the population of our country, and blah blah blah. But, in reality, I don’t care. I still just smile so much thinking about the idea of having a wife I love and children who make my life feel complete.
I don’t think there’s a problem with wanting to raise children I love and spend the rest of my life with a person who feels like my second half. To me, that idea can’t get outdated. After all, we’re a SPECIES! The idea of procreating is the most normal and basic function we’re supposed to have. So, maybe I’m not original, but, hell, I’ll be happy.
When this hit me, I realized that as long as I don’t loathe the job I have, I don’t care what I do. I knew ever since the schism took place where I had to start giving “serious answers” towards what I wanted to be when I grew up that my future career would never be my life. Sure, I may have said “I want to be a Lawyer,” but in reality I was thinking about buying my kids video games for Christmas, and playing them together.
So, with that attitude in place, I realized that I’ve been at my job for as long as I have because I honestly don’t mind it. Sure, there are parts I enjoy and parts I don’t, but even “dream jobs” have that element to them. I don’t mind being in Human Resources at all. I figured “why don’t I just continue down this path?”
I also get to do a lot of things for fun: I write and play music both with my friends and by myself, I still write poetry (and these lovely essays), I have a webcomic (always loved comics!), I’m learning the craft of Long-Form Improvised Comedy at UCB Theatre in Manhattan. But I want to keep these things as just that: fun things in my life, but not my career. In the end, I guess you can just consider me a boring guy: I just want to have a family of my own.
But I never cared much about being memorialized or remembered throughout time. Who cares about that stuff? If my family and my friends think I’m a great person, well, then that’s all I need. I don’t need to be Chaucer and make a bunch of bored college kids sit through my “masterpieces” hundreds of years after I’m dead. If I have a job I don’t mind then I get money for my family and for myself. I have all these creative projects I do on the side, and I’m surrounded by people I love. Hmmm. Sounds pretty damn awesome to me!
This doesn’t mean I wasn’t being honest when I commented on Tim’s post saying I would definitely open a bar with him if I could, or cook delicious food in a coffee shop. If that could happen and make me enough money to live off of, that’d be great! But, I’m happy where I am now too. My current goal works for me and makes me smile a whole lot.
Coming to this kind of happiness with my life after all these years of career based uncertainty and some unhappiness feels a bit like winning the lotto. Getting to open a really cool Bar/Venue/Arcade with one of my closest friends would sort of be like winning the lotto and then high-fiving all of your friends afterwards, and then going out & buying them all beer. It’s an extra bonus, some more one-ups if you will, to an already amazing life.
So don’t think I wouldn’t totally do that with you, Tim!
But as my great friend Chris once said (which I put into a song): we’ll always want more, but as long as we can be happy with what we’ve got, it’s fine. In the end, I just had to examine deep in me what really made me happiest. In my case, it wasn’t a job, but rather having a family, and never giving up on my creative outlets.
That’s not everyone’s ideal life-path though. If being an actor makes you happiest, well, then do everything you can to go towards it! Differences are what make this world wonderful, and anything you have immense love for is something you should strive to build your life around. Because, then you’ll be the best actor, musician, or poet this world has ever seen, since you’ll be passionate about it.
So head towards those goals of yours. Oh, and if you happen to see an opening for Guy Who Gets Paid for Eating Lots of Tasty Things along the way, let me know. Just leave it in the comments.
Keep the love alive, everyone.
- Mike
