I’m writing this for the rest of you in your twenties who, like me, have no idea what you want to do with the rest of your life. Realistically I wanted to be a thousand different people. I mean, who doesn’t want to be Harvey Specter in Suits, a walking, talking kick-ass lawyer who makes things happen. Yes. Or what girl hasn’t dreamed of living the life of his favorite actress, model or songwriter. The problem with our twenties is this, we’re not in the movies. You’ll most likely spend your twenties on broke, but okay, at some point in his life, Dwayne Johnson had seven dollars to his name and Eric Thomas lived on the streets of Detroit, now look at them. We may not be in the movies, but we surely have our own script that hasn’t been written yet, but the problem is, where do we start?
Sitting here writing this gives me a whole new respect for movie stars, who create an entire world in their mind and throw it into a movie. I find it quite difficult to create my own. It was Zig Ziglar who said, “we are designed for success” and “you have greatness inside of you.” I think this is true? Absolutely. I think we all have an unwritten path that we always knew we would walk, but life’s distractions have overtaken us by a thousand other paths that we jump down from time to time.
Take high school for example, there are some who go to high school, sometimes even middle school with a destination. You have Sally Smarts and Gerry Genius, who will be doctors and nurses like their parents. On the other side of the tab, you have Johnny Jiggers who knows he wants to be an iron worker because he can’t stand school, homework, or teachers. Then there are the unfortunate ones who have been cheated throughout their lives and who never made it past high school because the smoke pit was the most important part to them. My question has always been this, where does this leave me?
Where I come from, if you build houses, become a crabber, or drink bud diet, you’re on the right track, some would say. Of course, I love where I come from and I love all those fishermen, carpenters and beer drinkers. In fact, I have become a carpenter myself and drink bud light. It was just one of those roads that was already traveled for me. It was like a bike path that you could walk on without tripping over branches or getting your legs torn by brush. It was comfortable. But, I want to jump off this path and jump on mine. I want to feel my shoes fill with water, the undergrowth tearing at my legs, and trip over some branches and open myself up a couple of times because I know I’ll eventually find what I’m looking for. I will not find it here on this road, I will find what my dad found, who is a carpenter and drinks Bud light, I will find a routine. I love my father, and his work ethic is second to none and I have always respected it. But even he told me that I am destined for more.
At twenty-three, I’ve made as many mistakes as you can make. I want to list them for all of you just so you know you’re not alone, but I’m not sure if I’ve already told all of you to my family, actually I know I haven’t, I don’t want to dig my grave here. But despite all those mistakes, I’m here writing this because even those mistakes and well-trodden paths that promised comfort couldn’t keep me from what I really want, which are answers, what will I do with the rest? of my life?
Like you, I have dreams. Not all of us are going to invent our own app and make millions. But more importantly, we are going to find out what we want, what we want, because we deserve more. To name a few, I have wanted to be a police officer, a heart surgeon, a carpenter (believe it or not), a lawyer, a dentist, and have thought about joining the military several times, specifically after reading the novel, “American Sniper” by Chris Kyle. The problem with most of my ambitious career choices is this, almost all of them have been delivered to me in my mind as the “perfect career” by an outside source. Let me explain. When I first saw Grey’s Anatomy, I was determined to be Preston Burke, the number one heart surgeon in the country who never loses his cool and has it all figured out. After watching Criminal Minds or Homeland, working my way up to a detective seemed tempting and it looked like me.
I know what you’re thinking! Surely, you might be able to do one of these things, maybe all of them. But it has to be because I want to, not because I like the idea of life that I see on Netflix, which is scripted and designed to appeal to people like me.
Honestly, my novelty is wanting to travel the world. Maybe I am looking for my niche in a career and a routine path when my Everest is waiting for me in Bangladesh working on a rice farm and meeting the locals, who knows?
A friend once told me, “Imagine you’re in the woods with a bow and arrow aimed at a target. You see the target clearly, you breathe more slowly, you draw the line tight, you can hear yourself breathing, so hold still, you’re ready.” Then a gust of wind sends a thousand blades around your target and you lose sight, but you fire anyway and miss.” This is what I have done all my life. I’ve spent my life shooting the leaves, not the target. I don’t think people fail because they aim high and miss, I think they fail because they aim low and hit.
What I am saying is this. So far I’ve been to college, dropped out, twice actually. I have worked on a busy downtown street where I live as a doorman for a few years. I’ve offloaded fishing boats more times than I care to count. I have been a waiter and have served and hosted in many restaurants. I ran a comedy club called ‘Yuk Yuks’ for a year before it closed (which I was obviously not involved in) and of course have worked on and off as a carpenter since I was sixteen, which I am currently doing. now. I won’t drag you down the dark path when I worked at a fish plant. No problem. But it’s important to keep in mind that, most of the time later in life, you’ll only regret the things you didn’t do, not the things you did and failed to do.
Some would say that I have wasted the last six or so years out of high school just strolling through life. I tell them, “I was exploring my options.” That usually throws a sock on it. I mean not many have an answer to that. I was a kid coming out of high school with the world ready to swallow me up, and he did. However, now I know something I didn’t when I was a young punk who wouldn’t grow facial hair (yes, I was the babyface of the class). I found out what I don’t want. I don’t want to just wake up every day, just make time. Going to the same job, same salary, seeing the same faces, absolutely miserable because I didn’t take the time to figure out what my passion was. It erodes your self-esteem, and I think if you live a life like that, something in you dies, and I’m not sure you’ll ever get it back.
The last six years have been some of the best and worst years of my life. It includes losing my mother, losing my grandfather who was my best friend, falling in and out of love completely with a girl I told people I would spend my life with, and getting about thirty thousand dollars in debt. . I mean, life will catch you on the blind side and you won’t be ready. I wasn’t ready. Just relax, accept and move on. Les Brown once said in a speech, “Don’t judge your chances based on where your life is right now. Where your life is right now is not you, it’s just what it is now.” I think what he means is that at some point we’ve all just been “doing time”, but just make sure it’s a stepping stone to something bigger and better, not a lifetime.
For those of you who don’t know, Joe Frazier was a world class boxer, he had a record of 32-4, with 27 knockout wins. They called him “Smokin Joe.” You never expect boxers to make any profound statements, but he did say: “At some point in your life, you’re going to be like the blind man, sitting in the corner lights, waiting for someone to come and help us across.” Sometimes we just want someone to hold our hand. I remember being that blind man, I remember how much more clearly I saw things when I had finally forgiven myself for where I had put myself in life. Don’t be too quick to throw in the towel. You’re going to make it to the next round.
The irony is that becoming that blind man helped me see more than I had ever seen before. One of the biggest tragedies to date, in my opinion, is this. Many of us confuse what we do with who we are. What I mean is, when did becoming the next Steve Jobs become more important than keeping the doors open and standing up for what’s right? Or when was the last time you did something without any expectation of receiving something in return? We have forgotten where we came from, we have forgotten who we are, in the desperate battle to know what we want to do. I know I did, for a long time.
The moment you find yourself, you will find the answers. But knowing what I know now, one thing I would love to have had the chance to say to my seventeen year old self, about to jump into my twenties is this. Don’t lose the child in you. Children dream, out loud. As a kid, no one could tell me I wasn’t going to be the next Wayne Gretzkey, because I believed I could do it, and as we get older, our inner child is taken from us through life experience. We let someone stick a finger in our face and tell us we’re not good enough. Most of the time it’s us, doing it to ourselves in the mirror. We lose our ability to dream.
In addition to the rest of this great knowledge that I am sharing with you, you should know this. Stay away from negative people. Les Brown once said, “Some people are so negative that if they walked into a dark room they would start to develop.” As clever and humorous as this is, he’s right. Some people just don’t want the best for you, actually many of them want the worst for you and hate to see you get ahead. Birds of a feather flock together. You run with negative people, sooner or later you will become one. Don’t let them take away your power, your momentum. Keep your vision and focus on what is yours for the taking. You are worth it.
If you take any of this, know that whatever you want, whatever you dream of, is yours, it’s possible. I know your parents or someone you care about has told you over and over again. But I’m telling you, I’m in my twenties, right next to you, and it’s true. This world is ours for the taking, we are the future. I once heard a line in a song called “Old Before Your Time” by Ray Lamontagne and it went like this. “There is nothing in the world sadder than talking to a man who never knew that his life was his.”
I could make a list of two hundred things you should NOT do in your twenties, but I think the truth is between the lines here. I still have no idea what I will do, but I know that I will never settle. I will chase whatever is waiting for me because I believe whatever you are looking for is looking for you too. But do not become a “single” person, these people remain in the past. Have you ever come across one of those? These people go around saying, “I used to do this, I used to do that, or I used to be this.” Excuse me, but “used bees” don’t make honey.
Get out there and find your way and never forget to have fun doing it. Never lose who you are, where you come from and what you’re made of, that person will save your ass. Life works in funny ways and I think if you take responsibility for making this your year, for going out there and getting on with life, I think the universe is on your side. Aim. if you happen to end up a bud diet drinking carpenter, don’t panic, we’re only in our twenties.
