Trying Not To Quit?

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If you're anything like me you've seen this meme 1-2 billion times on the internet. It is kind of funny how often I've seen this meme on social media and how few times I ever actually paid it any mind. Often though, I've felt myself really contemplating what this visual represents and how it in some ways perfectly encapsulates what life is like.

2-years ago I lost my job in the middle of a global pandemic with zero idea what the fuck to do with my life. I was in so many ways lost at what I should be doing with my life. I had reached a critical moment in my story where the path forward was no longer clear. Instead of there being a proverbial fork in the road, there was no road at all. It felt like while there were an endless possibility of choices ahead, simultaneously none existed at all. A funny thing happens when life diverts like that and I was given the gift of my now career in photography.

What the last 2 years have amounted to is nothing short of a miracle. In 2020 I was a rudderless ship lost at sea and in 2022 I'm on the verge of every single major goal I set 2 years ago coming to fruition. The odd thing is that while I've accomplished so much, while I feel so incredibly fulfilled, I'm also very much feeling like the guy who's about to turn back and give up. Is that normal? Does that happen to you? Do you ever feel like you're on the verge of all of your hopes and dreams coming true but they are somehow still just at out of reach?

In a lot of ways that can be the life in a creative career. One I was not fully ready for or one that I have yet to fully grasp but none the less the one I have found myself in. Ultimately I think when it comes to these sort of "rubber meets the road" moments in life you have two very difficult choices.

1. Keep going

2. Give up

While giving up is not even remotely in my DNA I will tell you I often feel like the person in the meme above, ready to turn back. I think in life it's often pressed upon us that when we start doing the things we're meant to be doing, living the way we're meant to be living, that life gets easier. In a lot of ways that's true. In some ways it's also not even remotely fucking close to being true.

I'm on the cusp. I have stretched out my arms and at the tip of my fingertips is every single fucking thing I could ever want in a life, in a career, in a living. Some days those dreams and goals are just out of reach but very soon, very, very soon those dreams are going to become realities. Somewhere in our brains is a predetermined desire to eschew anything that comes with delayed gratification. It's why social media provides the necessary dopamine rushes we crave, and it likely is the sole reason behind my current mental state.

As I aim to get a hold of my inability to appreciate delayed gratification I will leave you with this. Something deep inside of me is preventing me from giving up and turning around. I feel it in my core that I'm on my right path and doing the things necessary to succeed, my hope is that if you are ever feeling this way you too will keep going.

This Week's Episode of The Wrong Advice Podcast