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Sidebar: My Self-Deception

Chris — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:00:25 +0000

Sidebar: My Path

Don’t remember who said it, but there’s something about the quote, paraphrased below, that sticks like beach tar to fleshy foot:

“Self deception is such an insidious thing; not only are you lying to yourself, but then the lie covers its own tracks, so you never realize it existed to begin with.”

The words ring in my ears, like the shrill WHIRL WHIRL of a distant police car, or the smoke alarm cutting through a dream, as I decide between the Plunge or a Toe in the Water.

Reason tells me the latter. Lay the foundation, build from the bottom, then race to the top. It is a sensible route: the money holding me over won’t last for long. I need time to establish myself in this city and to produce worthy material, and time costs money.

Yet there’s this gut check, some inner-level of “shit ain’t right” noxious-fog clouding my emotions I must resolve before making my decision:

Am I returning to the service industry because it’s the best method to reach my career goal of becoming a screen writer? Is it really the best thing I could possibly do? Or am I terrified; still that scared little boy with a bowl cut and sweaters two sizes two big, who retreats to the familiar?

Am I returning to restaurant work because it’s all I know? Because I’m a Linus and it’s the security blanket I’ll drag around behind me for decades to come?

At times of personal uncertainty, I remind myself to stick with The Plan. The Plan was formulated at a secure, logically-sound time, before Daniel found himself cast in the lion’s den. Like the professional golfer, disciplined enough to stick with his swing, regardless of how poorly he’s playing in a match. He knows better than to stray from the body mechanics he spent years developing.

Or a savvy investor, who refuses to budge from his investment strategy, and holds his position while all the Chicken Little’s of his world (his clients, the media, his colleagues) scurry around with heads lopped off, selling in a panic because of a sudden downturn.

But… did my self-deception stretch even as far back as when I formulated The Plan? Did I already realize how far I’d find myself outside of my comfort zone, and justify it months ago?

Did my lies already cover their tracks months and months ago?

Maybe they did.

I want to berate myself for my weaknesses, for my hesitation while my mind screams at me to act. But time’s up. I’m here now, and there’s no one around to seal shut the lions’ mouths. The luxury of second-guesses, or armchair quarterbacking the next step, goes to the day dreamers who speculate the journey. They have the good fortune ribbing you on a mistake, or jiving at a cocktail party about “how I would have done it.”

If I’m wallowing in my own self-deception at this particular crossroad, then let it be. I’m only hurting myself. I’m the one who has to work harder, produce more, and put myself outside of my comfort zone in other arenas to compensate for my weakness.

I can live with that.

Sidebar: Final Thoughts

Chris — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:00:44 +0000

There’s this image of Will I can’t get out of my bed.

Perched on a ledge, his legs and fashionably plaid shorts dangling over the edge; below them, a 12-foot drop into sand. His brown Hollister shirt sopping in his perspiration, like he just pulled it from a bath drawn from his own sweat. Water beads dot his eyebrows. His tired hands shake as they clutch the hard rock.

He silently counts to himself, psyching himself up for the drop. “One, two, three…” But his butt doesn’t move. It remains rooted, still as stone, like any of the rock formations we’ve encountered in Zion. “So,” he said. “That didn’t work.”

Then he turned back to me.

“I can’t do it.”

The fact he was in this spot at all – not sipping water, patiently waiting for our return at the beginning of the trail, still shocked me. Getting here, twelve feet of gravity between him and the ground, required him to climb the distance a few hours ago, white knuckling, tip-toeing, and heel hooking his way up the red rock.

After that, the bouldering problems got real hard. Yet he traversed every barrier we traversed, accomplishing the goals via alternative means, but conquering them nonetheless. Slowly but relatively smoothly, until now.

I shrugged, and looked around. The sun was starting to duck behind the wall of rock behind him. We still hadn’t found a place to camp, so if we were lucky, we’d pitch the tent with the last snatches of sun beam on our backs. If we were unlucky, Will would be getting booted off that ledge and we’d set up camp in darkness.

You don’t have much of a choice, I told him. It’s getting dark, and we need to head back. We can’t stay here forever.

Seeing him there reminded me of this scene from, Gattaca, with Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. Hawke’s character needs to avoid the authorities, and behind him, he drags a reluctant Uma Thurman, who’s ragged breathing can’t quite catch up to her physical exertion. She suffers from a heart condition, and when they finally collapse behind a wall, she gasps, “Don’t you understand? I can’t do that.”

And Hawke replies, “You just did.”

As I planned this road trip I couldn’t help but feel relieved I was doing it with two friends. I’d never be able to road trip across the country, schlep all my belongings out west on my own, I reasoned to myself. How would I handle all the driving, or go camping by myself? Wasn’t it a safety issue, sleeping alone in the wilderness? Those questions nagged at me, all the unknown variables that pricked like nettles for someone who needs at least some semblance of a plan to get through his day. I truly believed I wasn’t capable of doing it.

And I was right.

You’re not capable of doing anything until you’ve done it.

A few months ago I went through the same mental gyration about moving out west at all, with or without other people. It was a terrible idea, I thought, abandoning a stable lifestyle to become destitute and broke. I’d never be able to leave everyone and everything familiar behind. I was simply incapable of such a task – until I did it, that is.

Will wasn’t capable of shimmying through tight spaces, and conquering those bouldering problems… until he did.

Just as he wouldn’t be capable of taking that twelve foot drop. Until after a 15-minute psych-up session, I watched him slowly edge his butt off the ledge… stick one precarious leg out into the air, and let go.

He fell.

He fell hard, air punching out of his lungs like pulling a nail from a tire. His mass collapsed on his knees, more force than he expected. He rolled into the dirt and groaned, disbelief at the feat that just moments ago, he couldn’t do.

Sidebar: The Contact List

Chris — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:00:10 +0000

“It’s all about who you know.”

Not that truth isn’t buried in this concept, but it’s disheartening to hear the divide between success and failure glossed over with a cliché and wave of a snooty hand. Is “who you know” really what it comes down to? Are talent and ambition just the side ponies accompanying the stallion into the ring? Of course not; then why, when we hear this expression, do we obediently bob our heads in agreement, already prepared to suck from the teat of complacency?

There’s an etiquette to using contacts, but accepting the notion above transforms them; from connectors to commodities, and suddenly the game changes: building a network of connections so everyone can accomplish a common goal degenerates to collecting and hoarding commodities for one’s own advancement.

Advancement – social, political, or otherwise, is easier if you’ve developed a network around it. But if you’ve structured this network to feed back solely to you, then you’ve sort of missed the point of it all. The network exists so you can create connections where before there were none, not to put yourself at the center of its universe.

These thoughts all come to a head as my six-week contract comes to a close, and the real hustling begins. Already the fear rumbles. Already, despite my weeks of preparations, my months of planning, years of driving myself outside my comfort zone, and every moral fiber in my body telling me not to, I’m tempted to take the easy route. I’m tempted to turn to a list of contacts, and “dial for dollars,” so to speak. The temptation is so great, to spam everyone and anyone for a lead, an interview, an internship, a job. So many people are doing it, after all. Besides, it’s like the saying goes: “It’s all about who you know.”

Except… (and call this old-fashioned, or idealistic, or naïve…)

Except successful people want to do their own leg work.

Here’s another way of looking at it: You’re new. New to the neighborhood, the area, the city, your industry. There are nuances to learn, and the fastest way is through your own sweat and failure. That means you’re on the street hunting for your own apartment, finding your own work, and dropping off resumes at every store with an OPEN sign hung from its window or blinking fluorescently at you in blue neon.

It requires character to do the leg work. If you show up and start asking for help on Day One, you might save yourself a few headaches and heartbreak.

But that’s where the lessons come from.

Also…

Zig Ziglar said, “You can have everything you want in life, if you’ll just help enough people get what they want.” People who do their own work and help others with a no-score mentality garner a certain respect in this world. It makes people stand up and notice. They see you got the hustle and the desire, and that’s a formula for success.

Everybody wants to be part of a success story.

Doors will open. Success will come. It’s a more difficult path, and it takes longer, but there’s longevity to success when it’s achieved in that manner.

There’s nothing wrong with making and using connections, or occasionally seeking help. It’s when priorities shift, however, and asking for help becomes the first and only resort (instead of the last) that what you consider “networking” is in reality, “taking advantage.”

What’s a practical solution to avoid this not-so-fine line? Commit to making three connections for others before seeking out a connection of your own. Help people who are in no position to help you in return. Maybe they live in a different country. Maybe they’re in a position far beneath you in your industry. Maybe they’re in a completely different industry. Write their names and the connections you helped them make on a white board in one column, and when you’ve tallied three names, write down one name of someone you’ve wanted to ask for a lead. Then execute with an open heart and mind, because you’ve earned that privilege.

The commitment to hustle and the commitment to give back three-fold to the world what you take from it, is far more valuable than a rolodex full of “who you know’s.”

Sidebar: The Struggle

Chris — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:00:41 +0000

He said he needed to get out. Out of Albany, out from his family, who had his back since forever, really. It was the reason he stopped trying in high school (“I stopped taking it seriously, since I always knew the family business was going to be there.”)

That was six years ago, and he’s been going crazy ever since.

“You don’t know how sick I am of old people. And omelets. That’s all I see: old people and omelets. If something doesn’t change soon, I’m going to lose it.”

He asked about coming out to Los Angeles with us. If it was okay with us, he’ fly in after we got settled down and live with us for a year. He wanted the West Coast. He wanted sunshine. He wanted an adventure – at least for a year. If things didn’t work out, then he’d move back to Albany. Go back to the business.

We talked about it over drinks. We expressed our concerns – that it wasn’t okay to piggyback off of us, after we’ve did all the leg work of finding a place to live. That if he wanted to do this, he had to haul ass, too. He had to be committed. Get in touch with brokers. Travel around town, looking for an apartment we could afford. If he wanted in, he was in all the way.

We talked more. We ordered more drinks.

We told him this wasn’t a vacation. This was the rest of our lives, and if he wanted to be a part of it, hustle was essential. We’d live tight, especially for the first year. There might be some staying in hostels, some nights sleeping in the car.

His face darkened.

“Are you guys planning on living in the ghettos?” he asked.

His desire and his sense of adventure waned. “I have commitments I have to take care of first,” he said. Then later, “It’s just hard. I might have to give up everything I have. Everything I worked for.”

You’re 24-years old, still living at home. What is this “everything?” we asked.

He nodded. “Maybe you’re right.” He half-smiled. “Maybe this is what I’ve been saving up for all these years, right?”

We left the bar on that note of optimism, with the faint hope we had another brother-in-arms, someone from Back Home, who’d join us out west. He drove me home, and we sat in his car, in my driveway. In the quiet night of suburbia, he petted the leather steering wheel as we talked, as if coaxing it to sleep. “Everything in my life was handed to me. I never had to struggle, and I think that’s what I need for a little while.”

I understood that much. We came from similar backgrounds, and there was this need to prove to our respective families we could make it on our own. Even when others scolded us, told us not to be silly, we didn’t have anything to prove to anyone, we knew they lied.

There was something to prove.

That was the last night we spoke of him coming out to California. Two days later, I received a text from him, his explanation for why he couldn’t make the trip out:

“I feel like I’m slowing down your guys’ momentum and I don’t want to get in the way. I know I have to get out of here, but I can’t find a way to make it work. Maybe after a year when you guys are settled in and you want to upgrade and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, something could be worked out.”

That was it. No phone call, no farewell, no good luck. We haven’t spoken since.

It’s simple, to speak of adventure, of doing this or doing that. Or to talk about struggle, to imagine betting it all on a car ride across the country where you may or may not live in the ghetto.

To talk about how hard your life has been, or how bored you are doing what you’ve been doing for the last six years.

Just as simple is to resign yourself to doing it for the next six.

What’s hard is following up on the dream. Doing it, even though no one believes in you. Actually living The Struggle, not just romanticizing about it – that’s the hard part.

Sidebar: Breaking Falls

Chris — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:00:47 +0000

The good news: my foot broke the bike’s fall. If I irreparably damaged Teddy’s two months before we left for Los Angeles, I wouldn’t forgive myself.

The bad news: my foot broke the bike’s fall.

In the background, I heard the engine putter to silence as I remembered the last time I laid the bike down. It was in an abandoned parking lot, and the bike was at a standstill. I put her down to the pavement gently, and Teddy was right there.

“Well, good; at least now you can see how hard it is to lift that back up after laying her down,” he said.

I crouched down and heaved. The bike barely budged. How many pounds is it? I asked.

“About 500 pounds.”

Shit. At peak condition, I benched 200, dead lifted 225, and squatted 250 pounds. That was about forever ago.

Teddy helped me get the bike back upright. “Don’t worry about,” he said. “Just don’t do it again.”

I wish I listened to his advice.

There was no one on the street. My cell phone was charging back at Teddy’s house – two blocks away. My foot was trapped, but I didn’t think I broke it; my leg neither. The sweet smell of gasoline wafted into my nostrils.

My father said to me once, “It’s funny what people are capable of when they have no choice.” The discussion pertained to restaurant management. Applying the wise words towards lifting motorcycles wasn’t his intention.

But whatever works.

It took two tries, but I got her back up – armed with one foot and enough adrenaline to resurrect a dead rhinoceros.

I rode the bike back to Teddy – first gear only; trying to shift into second sent shooting pains into my left foot. After profuse apologies and some arguing, he convinced me to go to the hospital (“Why wouldn’t you go? That’s why you’re paying for your health insurance.”)

He drove me back to my house first – I drove a manual, and couldn’t use the clutch with my foot. Then I took my family’s minivan and drove him back, and returned home.

Afterwards, I called my cousin, asked her if she could drive me to the hospital. And to bring crutches, because I was getting tired of hopping around on one foot.

We’re sitting in Albany Medical 45 minutes later. I know the attending nurse; she’s a regular from the Restaurant. My x-ray’s are taken immediately, she writes me a prescription, and I’m back out the door in record time. My cousin drives me to the pharmacy, and helps get me inside the house. I heat up leftovers, and watch an episode of Entourage.

A smooth day, all things considered.

Had this happened in Los Angeles, it’d have been a different story.

No extra vehicle that happens to be available when I needed it.

No family available to help chauffeur me to and from the hospital, the pharmacy, back home.

No established relationships – from business or my personal life. In Los Angeles, I’m another face, another customer, another patient.

No house.

Probably no leftovers either. Certainly no on-demand cable.

It’s not easy to make the choice to give up everything. It can be done; but you must know how much you’re giving up.