captkevman

Like many people, I’ve looked back on events in my life at various times and thought, “what if…?” 

What if…

• …I had finished college?
• …I had followed through on those initial contacts I made with Disney Feature Animation or MTV Animation?
• …I had moved out of the area while I was younger, to somewhere like - say - Atlanta or San Francisco?
• …I’d had more confidence in my talents and abilities when I was younger?
• …I had better handled that very first credit card transaction I ever made (the one where I was ripped off for $400 and defiantly refused to pay until the matter was cleared up)?
• …I had felt I deserved better and pushed toxic personalities away from me sooner?
• …I had fought harder for that job I really loved?

Would I still feel that my life is a mess? Would I still feel like I had neglected myself (and my friends, and my family) in some very basic ways? Would I be any happier with the way my life had turned out?

I’m on the cusp of 40, and as I take inventory of my life, I count:

• a wife who deserves better than what I can give her,
• beautiful children who need more than I provide for them,
• a wonderful & extended family that I don’t make enough time to appreciate,
• long neglected friendships,
• a bloated body, broken by abuse and neglect,
• talents that haven’t been exercised for years,
• a mind that can’t stay focused,
• a temper that I can’t keep in check.
• a spotty career that fell apart too soon,
• a fledgling business,
• a list of failed projects that started off as grand ideas but died with whimpers.

The thing is, there aren’t that many huge “a-HA!” moments that I can remember. But there are countless times where I just let life happen and took the easy path, when the more challenging (and rewarding) one was there right in front of me. Stay in an abusive relationship, or leave? Stay in school, or quit? Follow through with that portfolio submission, or just forget it and avoid rejection? Defend my job, or just throw my hands up and stop fighting it? Take time to develop and teach my kids properly, or just yell at them when they don’t behave as I feel they should? Learn to eat right and exercise, or stay fat and sedentary?

I haven’t been living my life for the past two decades — I’ve let life happen to me. I’ve just been drifting along to wherever the seas of circumstance have taken me, without any resistance or intention. I could’ve been a great cartoonist by now. I could’ve been a great father and husband. I could’ve been a successful…well, ANYTHING. But I didn’t act when life presented me with opportunity.

I know that 40 is still relatively young, so I have a chance to change things for the better, and I hope I will. But if my life can serve as a lesson to anyone, I would like to impart these words of caution:

Don’t just let your life happen — live it. Make your choices, and choose the difficult and enriching path, because the reward will be so very worth the effort. You deserve more for yourself than a life of empty choices.