Impossible Things

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice in Wonderland.

After years of frustration at the difference between my ambition and my accomplishments, a friend suggested that I see a counselor. There was the usual delay with me forgetting to set the appointment for a few months. Eventually I arrived. The Doctor’s office was cramped. Photos and art from India lined the walls. The chair was so comfortable, I almost slept. I cannot remember her name, but I can drive you to her office. If I miss a name, I assume it will show up later on a bill or in an email. Life seems to work like that. For forty-five minutes she asked me questions about work and career cycles in my life.

Sometimes a bell goes off in my head and I learn something important about myself or the other worlds around me. The doctor leaned in and said “Maybe there is another way of looking at your life. A way that takes the negative emotion out of the way you live and work. A way that can set you free of this frustration.” DING!

You see, I KNOW I am capable of, and destined for, something larger than myself. My goal has always been to live a life that is extra ordinary. In many ways, I have lived my dream life. When I was eighteen, I decided I wanted to travel, own a recording studio, write, produce and perform music and to do it all on my terms. It is thirty years down the road and I am living that life. I am living that life with one small hitch: it doesn’t look like I thought it would. It is a case of “be careful what you wish for, you may get it.”

My wife and I have been watching Gene Simmons Family Jewels the past few months. I am pretty sure YesterMe was thinking along those lines: beautiful castle in Los Angeles, big time music tours, fame, etc. It seems likely that those were the things fueling my masturbatory dreams. The whole reverend thing was NOT in my picture perfect world. It has turned out perfect, if not the picture I had in mind. Let’s get one thing straight right here: MY LIFE KICKS ASS.

Somewhere in all this, I never stopped believing six impossible things before breakfast. I see a vision of FutureMe and move toward it. As Marc Bredencamp says “I’m somewhere in the future and I look much better than I look right now.” Doing anything I want in life is made all the more desirable if I am told it is impossible. Impossible just means we haven’t looked at it from enough angles. “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.” Said the Apostle Paul and I am just stupid enough to agree. I am sure I did not know that line at eighteen, but I know I today. I grew up looking at the inspirational posters in the library and believing the slogans. By the time someone told me they were all bullshit, it was too late, it was already a part of me.

My story to the doctor was one of bands, movies, documentaries, books, CDs, publishing companies, non-profit organizations, magazines, churches, and a variety of other projects started from a dream and dropped when some other shiny thing caught my attention. The frustration of it all has driven me to sabotage good situations and spend countless hours in dark rooms looking off into space in fits of depression.

“Have you considered that you may be a Pioneer and not a Settler?” as she explained her theory of me to me, her words sprang to life in my heart. “A Settler comes into a situation and creates order. A Settler manages the growth and the day to day operation of a thing.” She continued “A Pioneer dreams, explores and creates something where there was nothing. You lack follow through on projects because you simply do not care about the long term of the thing. You are curious to see if it can be done. You want the experience of proving to yourself that you CAN do it.” Her words were now exploding in my sole. “As soon as you are satisfied you have beat the challenge you set for yourself, you are off to something else.” She continued “The down side of all this Pioneering is that other people are involved in the achievement: people looking forward to the benefit of this new thing. That’s why you like to work alone. Working alone leaves less people disappointed by your lack of interest in the final result.” She commented that this pattern may only show up in a few areas of my life, but is the dominating influence in those areas. She then gave me a few tools to help work around this issue in my career.

I walked out of her office and was very quiet for about two days. It all made perfect sense, but is it just a cop out for being a slack? I had already spent most of my life beating myself up over a lack of follow through. I have never seen the movie Failure to Launch, but that phrase runs through my self talk. No one can hurt me as completely as I can hurt me. What do I have to lose by looking at my life from a different angle? I long ago embraced the impossible as a life choice.

In the months since that meeting I have decided to come out of the closet. Look at me world: I am a dreamer that, like Don Quixote, is always chasing windmills! I will not be deterred by what is or is not possible. My life does not need to look right to anyone but me. Sometimes I will win and sometimes I will fail utterly. I have found the failures make better stories. 

Mark