After 21 years of following a script, the post-college world means living each step not knowing what the next one will be. This is one man's trek through the uncertainty...

Saturday, October 18, 2008

The Quarter Century Address

One score and five years ago today my father and mother brought forth on this continent a funny-looking creature with a full head of black hair and a propensity to drool and nap.

Some things never change.

Conceiving him in love (suspiciously around Valentine’s Day), they dedicated him to the Mister Rogers proposition that all children are created equal, especially those who enjoy talking to a middle-aged sweater snob through a TV screen.

Now he is engaged in a personal civil war, an inner clash testing whether his boyish idealism and youthful simplicity can endure the Joneses and pressures to sacrifice adventure for stability.

He realizes success is no longer as finite as a test grade, a trophy or a piece of scrolled paper etched with calligraphy. For a few, success means reaching a certain societal status. For some, it means finding The One and starting a family. For others, it means making strides down an envisioned career path. For still others, it means uncovering an elusive truth that sets you completely at ease in your own skin. For him on his Silver Birthday, success is a “To Be Determined.”

Even with the continued uncertainty, 25 years have shown me that age tends to do two things: it installs in us an autopilot button and it instills in us a know-it-all attitude.

It’s easier as you get older to go through the motions at work, distance yourself from friends who’ve propped you up in the past and lose sight of where you came from. It’s also easier to feign omniscience to impress or bloat the ego.

What can combat these traps that foster superficiality and distance yourself from your less fake pre-25 self?

Failure.

It’s harder to deal with it when you get older, but that’s when it becomes the most meaningful.

Approach the fun gal at the barbeque and ask her on a date. Suggest your new product idea to the boss. Join that community group without knowing anyone in it. Explore that new career option. The worst that can happen is failure, but out of it comes a risk and a challenge that continually stretches you and keeps you vital and hungry.

Fellow October 18er Mike Ditka, the screws-chomping, WD-40-drinking former coach of the Chicago Bears, once said: “Success isn’t permanent, and failure isn’t fatal.”

Iron Mike wants us to fail.

My Quarter Century resolution is to fail more often and not shy away from situations where failure is possible. How else can you grow, while staying true to who you are, in the next 25 years?

2 comments:

Julie said...

Props on your birthday resolution, MD. Here's to another great year of figuring this twenty-something life out!

Jeremy said...

I am a bad friend. I did not email, call, text or send flowers on your birthday. To make amends, I must say that was one of your best posts ever. You are the man. Just keep on failing, brother, keep on (you know I kid).

But seriously, any post that invokes the Great Iron Mike, the Monster of the Midway, the Terror of the Refrigerator, the Giant of the Bath Tub, is a classic post, one that if I ever have access to a printer again will print out and put on my bathroom wall. You the man Deegs. Happy Bday. Next time Im in the US, a brew on me.

BTW, Argentina is good, now in Chile for a little while.