December 27, 2004
Why are we so often afraid of living?
I'm home for the holidays, and have spent the past few nights going out with my old friends. Colorado Springs is a deceivingly small community, and a night out is guaranteed to be met with dozens of chance encounters with old acquaintances. The past few nights have been no exception.
While it's been fun to bump into people long forgotten and play the obligatory round of "Two Minute Catch-up," the conversations are often tinged with sadness. It's not because these people's stories are filled with tragedies - it's that their stories are filled with...nothing.
At some point during nearly every conversation, people express how cool it was that I had jumped ship for New York. This is quickly followed with something like, "I wish I could do that..."
I don't think all of these people want to move to a giant concrete island. Rather, I think they know what going to New York represented for me, and they want to have an experience like that themselves.
But they choose not to.
They convince themselves that their current job, or their girlfriend, or their financial situation, or their fear of what "everyone would think" is more important than pursuing something big and bold and daring and altogether uncertain. They convince themselves that they don't have what it takes.
The thing is, it's completely untrue. People at home look at me and think that I'm some big success story, that I'm doing something that they somehow can't. Why can't they?
I'm in New York because I decided to take a risk and not be afraid of falling on my face. The past few weeks have provided me with numerous learning experiences. I've screwed up more than once, I've been overwhelmed, and I've wondered whether I'm truly good enough. But I'm there - I'm working my tail off for a company I believe in, and it's because I took a risk.
It makes me sad that people think they can't do the same thing. They've been beaten down by life, conditioned by their families and friends and past experiences to think that they're nothing special, that their dreams are unrealistic and irrational.
What do you say to someone like that? How do you convince them during the 120 second chance meeting that they are special and talented and can truly do whatever the hell it is that they want to do? And how do you get them to believe it - particularly when your breath is laced with whiskey?
It's nice to be in a city where no one knows you.
