What I Want to Do???

Being 25 years old now, and working just to work for 2 years, I have had this one question on my mind for the better part of three years since I graduated college. It’s on everyone’s mind I think growing up, the age old phrase “What do you want to be/ What you want to do.” Where am I going with this? I’m starting to realize maybe as you search for what you want to be (when you “grow” up); you start to learn who you really are and what is really important to you. Growing up soccer consumed my entire thought process on this matter, and it was the only thing I saw myself doing. Not for money, not for fame, just for me. I was pretty good at it, it all made sense to me, and I had a passion for it. After a short run once college ended, circumstances with me pursuing other things in my life ended that, and turning in my cleats hasn’t really resulted in me picking up something else to be passionate about career wise.

Someone once told me, it’s not always finding what you want to do that’s important, it’s finding things along the way that you don’t want to do, and scratching them off the list that gets you somewhere. There is no point in listing what I don’t want to do b/c that could take forever. I’ll just keep that in my head. I guess that principle can be applied to a lot of things in life and I agree with it. But sometimes I just wish I knew. Some things about myself I have always known, others I find out as days go by. I have definitely learned some hard lessons over the last three years that have made me a stronger person, but at the same time I would have been fine with skipping out on more than a few of them that were just distractions getting in the way of what I’m supposed to do with myself already.

When I think about what I want to do with my life, its very frustrating as I get nowhere, and so I just try to think of the things that do bring me happiness. I think a job can’t make you happy; you have to be happy with yourself and have the right attitude about it. Attitude is absolutely everything, the mind is such a powerful thing, and there are a lot of people who work really crappy jobs everyday but they have the right perspective on what’s really important so they do just fine. My problem is I expect to do something big in my life and even having the right attitude about something won’t change that. Once I started working everyday and having to get up I definitely had a new found respect for my father, who has gotten up every day my entire life to give me everything I need and most the things I have ever wanted. Now I strive to be more like him and find something I can be successful with but I do not want to settle for what is just given to me. What I am worried about… frustrations and distractions getting me away from the person my parents raised, and my lack of patience pushing me into all the wrong places thus setting me back in moving forward and growing as a person and doing what I’m supposed to do with my life. Make sense?

Truth be told… I could pick up shoes and go play a soccer game tonight on pure adrenaline if I had to and be fine. Nothing could make me happier. That would solve everything real quick, easy fix. Or would it? Sports used to be everything but now I’m finding other things occupying more of my time and complicating who I am and what I want to be. When I say my time I’m referring only to my time aside from work, which isn’t much. Sometimes I wish I could have experienced playing guitar in front of a few thousand people instead of soccer. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I want to… go to the gym, play guitar, play soccer, do some drawings for my graphic novel I have barely scratched the surface on, watch a new movie, find some new music, try that whole eating thing at midnight, shower, catch up on DVR’ed shows, meet friends to play basketball, have some beers with the guys, build something, clean, do laundry, it all adds up to be so much more time than there is to do it all. My problem is I will always want to do all these things and I never will be able to do them all consistently. Right now its what I hang on to and its not one constant goal with progress. I hope this makes sense… Outside of work I have a million things I know I want to do, and when it comes down to deciding what I want to do from 8 to 5, a focal point in my life, I have no clue.

My three biggest interests… sports, music, and film. Generally speaking that really doesn’t carry over into the corporate world at all, but who cares about the corporate world! I could do pretty much anything involved in one of these three areas. As far as playing a sport that time has most likely passed, but I think broadcasting or some sort of promotions/ marketing/ business side could be cool. My friends always tell me when we are watching games I should be a broadcaster. A lot of the times I will say something before the sportscaster does and my friends will just laugh. You do really have to question how some of these guys get there to begin with, they are absolutely horrible.

Music… there are so many different levels. Just playing acoustic guitar on a back porch with a few people is a great experience. Play the song correct, add a little bit in to make it your own, mess up the words, miss a chord, it still rocks. I could eliminate going to bars from my life if I could get people to jam out on a back porch and have some beers. Unfortunately very few of my friends feel this way and even fewer live close enough to make that happen. I would love to work with anything that had to do with putting music together, promotions, editing, sound, setting up equipment, or even designing album covers I don’t know.

Just like music, film is a wide open area to work in, and also one that’s tough to get a start. Just making movies with my friends is so much fun and some of the guys who put together some of the things we do have some really good ideas about how to film, what to film, characters, ideas for shows/ movies, you name it. I seriously believe we should just have a film crew follow us around and the end result would be very entertaining. Its been done before and made groups of total idiots famous. The fame isn’t important, but if I had the resources I would do it and it wouldn’t suck. I have never seen anyone watch anything we have put together and not like it.

Most of my friends have an appreciation for film and music, with that comes some interesting characters who have some really good times, say some really funny things, with some sort of reference to a movie, with some song in the background, that would be great to get on video and share with other people, because that’s what its all about. Taking ideas from other people, letting them influence you, and finding something to make your own. I’m learning more and more about myself every day… so maybe my time to do what I’m supposed to won’t come for a while, but the influences are all there and I’m starting to recognize them more than I used to.

I want to do something with my life that at the end of the day it means something. Working a job to put food on the table for your family at the end of the day… does mean something, I get it. But right now I’m young, single, and it’s all about me and what I want to do. What I do only affects me, so now is the time to take some chances to do some things. The problem… in the words of my friend J.R., “I don’t know, you know.” People don’t realize how much of an impact they make whether it be good or bad. Some never know and once they are gone there impact is even greater than it ever was. Name some of the greatest musicians of all time and I guaranty you a lot of them you name were way before their time, and their lives were all shorter than they were supposed to be b/c of drugs, sickness, or their genius itself being their downfall. I don’t want to be famous because in all reality what is fame? I just want to go home at the end of the day not caring if I play guitar or work out or just sit and do nothing, because I will already have some feeling of accomplishment like I did something productive with my day. That would be a great feeling… and something worth passing on when I have my own family.