This post is by Michael Pollock, the original owner of Small Business Branding. Yaro Starak now owns and produces the latest content for this blog.
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I hate to sound cynical. Well, that’s not completely true. Sometimes life kicks the shit out of you enough that cynicism is about all you have left (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it). I’m in one of those moods. And don’t give me the "you make your own choices, so you create your own life" horse shit. I know all the pop psychology missives that lead us to believe we’re in control of our lives. And there’s plenty of time to sooth the existential agony with all that crap. For now, however, I’m playing victim to life’s cruel and (not) unusual punishment.
I remember when I was a child. "Mom," I’d say, "I’ll find a cure for cancer some day." Ugh. What the hell was I thinking? Was I thinking at all? Or was I merely yearning, narcissistically, for just the right amount of attention to feel like I’m alive, yet not too much to think the world revolves around me. The ego is a tricky little fucker. Unchecked, it becomes a monster. Yet, when you crush it, the soul is somehow much less than it could be. Now, as a parent, I pray for the wisdom to walk that fine line with my own daughter. Oh hell. Maybe it’s all genetic anyway.
So at 18-years-old you leave home all high and mighty. At best, you’re ready to conquer the world. At worst, you feel a sudden desire to shit your pants in a fit of fear that leads to the first of many hyperventilating anxiety attacks you’ll have over the course of your life. Wondering what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into, the preferred path leads straight back to the door of mommy and daddy, yet you realize it’s too late. You’re not in Kansas anymore. Or Kiev. Or Kuala Lumpur. Or
Kazakhstan. Or Kenya. Or any place that feels remotely like home. The ride of your life has begun, and there’s no getting off now. Suck it up.
But fear is easily remedied. Whether it be narcotics, alcohol, sex or hard work, the fear is appropriately repressed beneath the ruse of expect-able post-adolescent behavior (at least if I’m a fucked up on something, my cowardice will go unrecognized). If you’re lucky, you manage to find a partner or partners with whom, in an appropriately codependent manner, you fight off the fear to make it to the next rung on the ladder without coming completely undone.
On the downhill side of "the best years of your life," you find yourself still getting ready to live. How will I make my mark on the world, you wonder. Will it be the corner office with drones to serve my every beck and call? Or will it be the white picket fence with perfect children performing the leading role in their private school plays? Will it be med school, law school or business school? Perhaps the academy? Will it be the the family business, the business of family or both? What the fuck. I just want to go back to high school football games, parties and cheerleader spankies on the front seat of dad’s new pick-up truck.
Choose or loose. Or so they say. Times running out already, and you’ve not yet even contributed dime one to your 401k. Social security? What’s that, besides something pop-pop looks forward to receiving in the mail around the first of each month. Not me. No sirree. I’ll take the road most traveled.
Swing low sweet chariot. Slavery did not, in fact, die in the 1800s. It’s alive and well each and every day I open my pathetic deer-in-the-headlights-looking eyes. Can I really do this for the rest of my life? Okay. Maybe just till the kids are grown and off to college. Maybe. Can my soul survive that long?
As the phrase "quiet desperation" begins to gently permeate the chorus of a song yet unsung, you find yourself still there. A solitary soul, it seems, left standing in the starting blocks as the rest of the field rounds the second turn about to lap you for the first of many times. You wonder. Did I not hear the gun? Or did I just not have the balls to run? Already I’m a thirty-something with little-to-nothing besides a few crow’s feet, several yet unanswered questions and a quarter’s worth of wisdom to help me, at least, write this shit in the hope that I’m not alone.
To be continued. Hopefully.