All In

All In

I’ve been on hiatus and now that I am emerging out the other side I find my mind is laser focused and my will is as sharp as a surgical instrument. I was lost. Now I am found.

So what happened out in that metaphorical desert? Allow me to explain.

My very first blog post was titled: Why I Can’t Call Myself An Author. It was my debutante ball, the first toe in the turbulent waters of media and exposure and it should have been obvious to me then but it would be the first crack in a growing divide. The clue is in the title. Tweet at me if you can figure it out before I tell you. Give up? I clearly don’t see myself as an author and in the post, I explain why but what I didn’t know was, in identifying myself as “not an author”, I was creating a crisis of identity.

Things were good at first, as they tend to be but as time went on and as I kept trying to press forward I began to notice a very serious pull back. I would sit to write and become very agitated, I would dive headlong into a YouTube or Netflix binge or just sit in the dark listening to music and wondering what the hell was holding me back.

This is going to require a little more context. Okay.

I’m a “wonderer” as I like to say — overthinker is the slur. But that’s my process. I remember my best friend would sit eerily still and flick the tip of his tongue up and down while staring blankly out to — who the fuck knows and just sit there. No fucking nothing. I would ask him what he was thinking and his response was, “nothing.” I’m sorry ladies and gentlemen but that ability is well beyond my scope. I can’t imagine a moment of blank.

So now that we’ve established I enjoy using the ol’ noggin’. At last, I can get to my point and it is: I have thought a lot about what it’s going to take to become successful, to be the person I want to be. I’ve also given serious thought to how I’m going to accomplish the “what it takes” and this is where I found my crisis of identity. The schism.

I have held the opinion that in order to pull off my rather lofty ambitions of becoming a professional author, stock market day trader, podcast host and owner of my own production company (as you can read, I want a lot). I must give myself fully to this process. Yet the few people in my life hold the opposing view. They feel my all or nothing approach is counterproductive and dangerous. I know they want me to be successful, this isn’t some frenemy, clandestine hater bullshit. These people care and want what’s best for me but they also want me to slow down, smell the roses, take time off for a trip to Vegas, hang out at restaurants and reminisce about the days they could have out drank the other. They want to include me, want me to be a part of the every day but I’m all but done with the “every day.” I don’t want to slow down, I want to speed up or truer still, I need to speed up. What I want is incredibly difficult to achieve. The life I want to create for myself is a long shot but I have to take that shot. I’ve boiled it down to this. At the end of the day, they, these wonderfully caring group of friends, they won’t have to suffer the consequences of my failing to reach my goals. They aren’t going to look back with regret for not having scratched and clawed and wrenched from life what was most important to them. I will. I will hold that leaded sorrow. They’ll go home, back to a life they chose to lead and I will be left draped in despair.

But before I give the wrong impression about the company I keep, in fairness, I wanted to believe like they did. I tried to accommodate the pace, the roses, the trips to Vegas and those overconfident challenges of who could have drunk who under what. (I could out drink them all!) It would be wonderful if I could achieve all I set out to do and not give up a single lazy Sunday. But that isn’t the way this shit works. I knew that. Deep down I knew I would have to walk away from everything and surrender myself, sacrifice upon the altar the person I am for the one I am to become.

This was the schism. My crisis of identity. The cognitive dissonance generated from knowing I have no choice but to go all in yet behaving like I could spare another week long trip to Hawaii was unbearable. It manifested in different ways. I was edgy. I remember skulking down the streets with my fists clenched, eager for a fight. I would go to bed and not sleep or oversleep and wake up tired. I felt a weight in the pit of my stomach, an anxiety I couldn’t pinpoint and a deepening discontent. My subconscious was pleading with me for reconciliation. I had to make a choice.

I’ve chosen to go all in.

I no longer have a conflict. My mind is at ease and my actions are in alignment with my desires. I get that I might miss out on some stuff, miss out on some people but it’s the price that must be paid if I am to pull this off. Is that unfortunate? Of course but to be able to look back and see a legacy I have built, it’s worth it.