Funny how things work out occasionally, isn't it?

I suppose that I, being the one person who knows ME better than anyone else, could argue that one of my main faults over the last couple of years has been spending too much time on self-reflection. I mean, I guess it isn't all that bad, right? After all, what is it that they say...an unexamined life is a life not lived or something like that? But sometimes my penchant for prolonged self-examination gets to be a little too much, to the point of me driving myself a little crazy over what ifs, roads taken or not taken, decisions made and not made, etc.

As is often the case with anything involving human life, so much of what becomes our fate is determined by things way beyond our control, and it's so very easy to forget that. I know I do. But every now and then life comes along and throws us a little reminder of just how powerless we are over it all. It's as if someone came knocking at our door and handed over a pamphlet that read simply, "Hey asshole...knock it off with all the hand-wringing and just get on with your fucking life." Something like that happened with me recently. Allow me to indulge you.

You see, a few years ago I made a choice to leave behind a "safe" career, one where I wore a suit to work each day and was compensated with an above-average salary, had employee-sponsored health insurance, a 401k, blah blah blah, all the usual bullshit that comes along with a career in corporate America, in order to move to New York and pursue the life and the career I would often find myself daydreaming about in the course of carrying out the duties that my "safe" career required of me. Many of the people close to me questioned my sanity upon hearing what I planned to do, while many of them encouraged and applauded me for having what they perceived as courage to try to blaze a new trail and to re-invent who and what I was. Whatever, it really didn't matter what anyone said about me or to me at the time, as I'd made up my mind and was resolute and I was doing what I was going to do regardless of what anyone else said. I simply had to do it.

Now, between the point where I left the "safe" career with the above-average salary, the health insurance, and the 401k, and now, there have been many doubts about my life choices that have infiltrated and infected my mind. I'd be lying if I tried to tell you otherwise. There have been many times where I've stopped to ask myself, "what the fuck are you doing...why did you let yourself go down this road?" The struggle, for lack of a better term, of trying to carve out a life in the arts is as exhilarating and stimulating as it is exhausting and frustrating, and I often feel as though there's a boxing match going on inside of my brain between the two sides. For every sharp jab that the exhilarating and stimulating part of "the struggle" lands, the exhausting and frustrating side will counter with a combination that'll put me on the ropes. This back and forth jostling has been perpetual and relentless over the last few years.

The whole "making it" process involves so much horseshit, so many kicks to the teeth, shady fucks, profound disappointments, the seemingly perpetual state of uncertainty, and out and out rejection, that it's, well, it's fucking hard man. And when you couple that with living in one of the more prosperous cities in the world and you have highly paid friends working in more "traditional" fields who are living it up in all sorts of crazy ways and blowing through more money in a night out than you spend on rent in a month, not to mention the fact that you're actually renting when you live in a country that has indoctrinated you into believing that you're worthless unless you own your home, well it just fucking fucks with you hard and in a bad way. At least it does me anyway. I can't tell you how many times I've stopped to take a look around and seriously second-guessed myself.

"I'm smarter than these dipshits...why isn't it me who's flying first class to Amsterdam to spend the weekend with a girl named Petra?"

Yeah, I know it's probably stupid and petty and a million other non-flattering things to think that way, but it's hard not to be overcome with doubts about whether or not the decisions you've made in certain aspects of your life have been the right ones sometimes, and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. Which gets me to this...

Over the last year or so we've seen a cataclysmic change take place in this country. We've seen thousands upon thousands of people lose their jobs, their homes, the savings that they've spent their lives accumulating, etc., and many of which did so at the hands of forces well beyond their control. It just happened. They thought that they had financial security, but they got fucked. Royally fucked. And there was little or nothing that they could do to save themselves from the fucking they were destined to receive. Many of these royally fucked people were employed in jobs and careers that the collective conventional wisdom deemed to be "safe." Do you follow what I'm getting at here?

To put it bluntly, watching all of things transpire that have transpired over the last couple of years has helped to eviscerate the doubts that'd occasionally lingered in my mind. Not to sound gleeful about the misfortunes of others, because that's the last thing I want to do and I empathize greatly with those who have lost a lot in all of this, but the plight of the "safe" American has sent a shock to my system, it's shaken me to the very core, and I'm overcome with the realization that in this life there is no real "safe" road to take. There are no certainties. There are no absolutes. There are no guarantees. Despite how empowered we may feel over the course of our own destiny, there is so much that we can never even hope to control. Who's to say that if I stayed trudging down my old career path I'd be any better or worse than I am now for having forgone that road? I might have lost all of the money I would have socked away in that 401k. I might have lost my job and my home. And I can't help but wonder how many people who took the "safe" road now find their lives in ruin and are filled with regrets over not having pursued careers in the things that they were most passionate about so long ago?

Absolutely nothing is "safe."

That's not to say that I didn't already know most of these things, because I did, but it often helps to have the things you believe affirmed by something tangible. The doubts that had been lingering periodically inside my mind have been replaced with an almost unequivocal belief that the choices I made were the right ones.

In other words, the exhilarating and stimulating side of that boxing match inside my brain recently landed what looks to be a knock-out punch. The exhausting and frustrating side is on the canvas and the referee is delivering the count, and I don't think it'll be able to get back up again.