Within a few short minutes a long awaited dream will come true. I will finally be able to rent a car without having to pay under age fees. Hooray. My life is now complete. As I turn twenty-five, I look back on the last quarter century with a depression-less stare on my formative years that were anything but depression-less. But nevertheless I have learned. I have grown and in my growth I have seen a world filled with turmoil both social and personal, I have felt a sense of overwhelming dread about the days to come, but I remain vigilant in the belief that if my first twenty-five years were difficult, that the next twenty-five will serve as the best of my life. When I was under the malaise of sorrow and despair I could have never dreamed of even reaching twenty-five. Twenty-five seemed as distant as the peak of Kilimanjaro, but as I reach the threshold and peer off onto the horizon those days of sorrow seem like an alien life. I am not the man I was nor am I the man I will be, but today I am who I am and I will celebrate turning a quarter century.
As a proud, but cautious, member of the human race I have grown in many more ways than just age and so on my twenty-fifth birthday I wish to share with you my commandments, the ten ways in which I hope others will choose to live their lives. I may die tomorrow or live to reach triple-digits, but no matter what the outcome of my life, these are the values and words I will choose to leave behind.
10. Sometimes the good ones die and there is no rhyme or reason to it
I could bore you with my philosophy on organized religion and therefore faith in general, but even if your religion tells you that a friend's death is all part of "God's Plan," there is still no real reason for it, or at least no reason anyone alive will ever understand or know. It happens far too often. The aspiring photographer shot down in a failed robbery, the twenty year old college student who slipped on a ledge, the wind on top of a roof that ended in disaster, the leukemia that had no business being in such a person. It happens. Too often we sit and ask our higher powers why these terrors occur, but at the end of the day even if you are one who believes in God's Plan (I am not one) there is still no purpose in trying to understand it. Why does this morbid truth exist within the commandments of living? Well it teaches us that we must cherish every single moment we have with those closest to us. Never leave a conversation in hate. Find a common ground. Make sure those who mean the most always know their importance in your life, because you never know when you will have to write a graduation speech or a eulogy. Live. Live with your heart open.
9. Those that fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
I am of course paraphrasing the famous quote by Churchill or Santayana or whom ever takes credit for making it. This is as much societal as it is personal. Today, people as a collective are far to focused on the now and while that may sound like a good thing, living in the moment and all, people are too focused on the instant. Twitter, Facebook, this blog, the national media. If it's not current, it's unimportant. While there are great benefits for this instantaneous source of information it takes us much too far into a Logan's Run universe where history has been eradicated. I am a better man today because I learned from the man I used to be. At a young age we learn that when we fall off our bike we get up and try again, only different. Why can't our government go back to learning how to ride a tricycle?
8. Addiction is a disease that shouldn't be fatal.
As the son of a known recovering addict I am proud to see the benefits of overcoming your addictions one day at a time. This has been a great backbone for me as I try and start a new diet and exercise routine to combat my addiction with food. But it is not without the days of true heartbreak. Of crying in your car and beating the horn. The ones that get through it are the ones that survive. As humans, we all have that necessity to live within our hearts and souls, but too often we allow these addictive diseases to overcome our minds. Always remember who you are and what you want to accomplish. It will guide you through your demons and into the sunshine.
7. A job is what you do, a career is what you love to do.
An immediate contradiction appears when you think of the father who works on the construction crew in order to support his kids. But here we think of this crew as his career, even if he works on it for three decades, unless he truly loves it, it is just his job. His career is being a father. I may work the odd job again like when I was a janitor or a paper boy or shop employee (ages 16, 17, and 18), but those will never be my career. My career is theatre. It has and always will be theatre. I don't do theatre because I want too but because I need too. I need too with all facets of my soul. What theatre gives to me, what it can bring to society, I don't just want to be apart of its evolution, but I need to be. I was born to be. Which goes into number 6.
6. Don't fight what's in your blood.
Theatre is in mine, well creativity is in mine so I will choose not to fight it. But my fight was at its core a different matter. For years I fought an inevitable truth that I knew one day would succumb me, but today it hasn't succumbed me, but instead I have embraced it. I was born to be a teacher. I was never forced or even told to be a teacher. I may have been encouraged but never was it implied in more than the passing, "hey, you would make a great teacher." Today, for the first time, I can finally agree with them. I was born to be a teacher. A great one, who knows, but a teacher nonetheless. If you were born to be a doctor, an actor, a farmer, it doesn't matter. Don't fight your mind, your heart, and your soul. You will always lose and end up unhappy.
5. Live life, don't watch it.
In short, experience your life. Or to steal from a great movie. "Carpe Diem, sieve the day boys, make your lives extraordinary." Make sure life is a verb for you. Seize the day.
4. Romantic love is extraordinarily rare, when you have it, hold onto it.
I had that love once and I let it go for petty and ultimately stupid reasons. I don't believe that we live in a sea of fish in which many people can make our souls whole. But I also don't believe in "the one." I am sure that there are multiple people out there for everyone, but it is rare in one's lifetime to see that perfect match. So when you do have that perfection hold onto it. Hold that love like it's air, like life cannot exist without it. Love with such passion that makes the heavens bow down to your hearts. Love and be loved and cherish that love every single second of every single day.
3. Appreciating family allows you to live longer.
Really all this needs to read is as follows, "family, a must have." Your parents are imperfect. Your siblings can make your blood boil and your extended family can be as distant as strangers, but we all need to make the effort, not just to love, but to create a community around that love. My parents bug me, but I love them. Not because they are my parents, or because they are perfect, they aren't, but because they have never gone a single day where they told me that following my dreams was a stupid idea. I love my brother and sister. They bug me. But I love them all the same. Both have a rare quality of being absolutely genuine human beings. Both are my heroes. And I love my friends. And my friends are my family as much as my blood. My extended family that includes Jen, Ann, Mariah, Sarah, Zak, Stephen, Taylor, and many more. My PNW family with Dan, Kai, Yusuf, Riles, Griffin, Daniel, Bob, and many more. My Iowa family of Amy, Braden, Duane, Paul, Brandon, Noble, Ginger, Hew, Jammie, and many more. My MCT family that is far too many to mention. My Arizona, my dance, my VCU, my Puget Sound, my, my, my family. They are the reasons why I exist. Surround yourself with love and you will live a life of true worth.
2. The journey is always better than the destination.
Through its trials and tribulations. Its torn skin and broken bones. Its tears and its ecstatic joy. Life is living. Let me die while I am still alive. If I should ever die before my time, do not weep for me, for I was out on an adventure, an adventure worth living for.
1. Always Believe
Thanks Noah. Never stop believing in a brighter tomorrow, in a brighter today. When the government disappoints you, participate in its reconstruction and self discovery. When anger fills your mind, actively push it away. When hate finds you, for friendships, race, gender, sex, marriage, kids, work, arguments, stress, broken cars, death, prejudice, ignorance, or depression; seek out love. Never stop believing in your world and in yourself.
Twenty-five years down. Tomorrow is twenty-five years and one day. Live on the horizon of your dreams.
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