Options

My problem for the last twenty-eight years has been options. I love options. I love having the ability to have options. I love the thought of options. I love thinking about the possibility of potential options. I love options.

The problem herein lies in the fact that I’m always wasting time with options and never actually pursuing any of them. I’ve learned to curb this passion of mine at times, but always in the back of my mind is: what other options are there?

I want to be a rock star. I want to be a record producer. I want to be a painter. I want to be a photographer. I want to be a writer. I want to be a screenwriter. I want to be a counselor. I want to be a teacher. I want to sit and think about more possible things to do with my life.

And not really do them.

Everything around me lately has been telling me to do what I love; tweets, blogs, books, movies, real people, fake people, dead people, my wife, myself.

I think the deeper issue is that we live in a specialized world. Go to school for one specific thing, graduate, and attempt to do that one thing until you are doing that one thing, then wonder why it’s the one thing you picked to do. Life hits and you have a family to support and others look down on not being financially secure, so you just keep doing that one thing.

I can’t do just one thing.

Doctors like to call this ADD. I can sit and read one book for hours, only getting up to facilitate and maybe pour more coffee. In fact my favorite pastime is to sit. I love to sit. I can sit on couches, on benches, chairs, inside, outside, you name it and I’ll probably enjoy sitting there. My point is I absolutely do not have ADD.

But I can’t do just one thing.

And I’m beginning to be okay with that. During the Renaissance artists would do all sorts of things. Make music, paint murals, carve sculptures, invent flying machines.

Why is it so wrong for people to act the same way now?

Right now I spend my time: Reading (work and fun), studying (school and fun), writing (school and fun), making music (church and fun), and watching sci-fi (I mean I want to write it, so its more educational experience than anything).

And I don’t intend to stop.