GET SERIOUS

Without question, my biggest, and most persistent, fear in life has always been that of looking back and realizing there are dreams, goals, experiences, adventures or relationships that I never accomplished or experienced. I have no explanation as to why this is, but it has informed virtually every important decision in my life.

A subset of this fear is not having done something today that will irrevocably obstruct my ability to accomplish something in the future. A good example might be, say, when I’m 40 realizing that not having gone to university in my late-teens has eradicated my goal of being a senior leader in a Fortune 500 company.

We all have either heard of or, likely, know many people like this. Those who have expressed these sorts of sentiments relative to their own lives. People who wanted to do something, or experience something or say something, but never quite got around to it, or didn’t plan or adequately prepare for it, or simply didn’t just say it at the time, and now the potentiality has forever been vaporized. It is these sorts of accounts that have served as cautionary tales and, literally, horrified me into actualizing my dreams.

To be clear, I’m not addressing the notion of regret. We, all of us, have regrets. The person with no regrets is a person who lives a very unexamined life. Rather, I’m addressing having crucial dreams or goals or whatnot in life and never having pursued them or let them remain unattended until it is too late. Legitimate pursuit without success is one thing, not attempting or infinite delay is entirely another.

GET SERIOUS

With all of this constantly in my mental backdrop, I recently found myself in bed one morning contemplating my life. A not too unusual, but glorious, aspect of having all of one’s time to one’s self. In particular, I was reflecting on all my dreams, ambitions and goals. My initial realization was that I have been exceedingly fortunate to have achieved all but one of them, so far. And there have been many. This, of course, immediately led me down a somewhat darker path – the examination of my non-successes and other varieties of abject failures. And there have been many.

The step thereafter was to attempt to determine if there is any single cause for either which I instantly identified. Success or failure, at least for me, can be distilled to one core attribute – being serious. I will admit that among my many “factory presets,” I am extremely intrinsically motivated, hyper-focused and achievement-oriented. When there is something that I desire, I pursue it relentlessly, at the expense of all other things. These characteristics have, invariably, provided a boost to greater or lesser extents along the way, but even in light of these, it really does come down to that one thing of being serious.

Sure, “being serious” is somewhat of a collective term for what I’m getting at here, but you, assuredly, understand the substance or essence. There are all manner of words that may be inserted into this phrase, Words such as “driven, goal-oriented, passionate, focused, diligent, visionary, etc.,” which is precisely why I like it.

I then began to think about the first time I ever got serious about something. I’m fairly certain that it was in my early teens when I got really into cycling. I loved riding and did so nearly every day. I could go for miles on end just relishing the sheer joy of it all. Shortly thereafter, I began to compete, signing up at local races. As you might imagine, there are all sorts of different types of competitive cycling events: road races, criterium, velodrome (track).

My favorite was the time trial, a form of competition where cyclists cover a specified distance on a road course. I loved it, but got absolutely slaughtered on my initial race. It was then, I realized, if I wanted to win someday, I needed to get serious about it. And I did. I turned my dream into action. Outside of school, homework, eating and sleeping, all else was exclusively dedicated to training and becoming better and better, until one day, I won one. And I kept training and I kept winning. Why? Because I was serious about it.

All of this taught me a very valuable, albeit very obvious, lesson. If you have a dream or desire, it can be actualized. However, to do so requires action, learning, and commitment. As one of my favorite humans of all time, the late, great Terry Pratchett once said, “If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.”

If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.

Terry Pratchett

In my later teens I became very interested in two other magnificent things – music and girls. As my passion for these increased, my being serious about competitive cycling proportionately decreased. I began to lose races and lose badly. Why? Because I had shifted my being serious from the latter to the former. This also taught me a very valuable lesson.

In any event, having cracked this code of sorts, I used it as a template for all future pursuits of dreams, desires, and goals, be those personal, professional, creative, travel, experiences, etc. Whenever I truly got serious, success would always follow. Conversely, when I was not serious success was half-assed at best, although it was mostly elusive.

THE AGE OF DISTRACTION & INDIFFERENCE

Dreaming is the indispensable quality of a life well-lived, but it is only the first step, while simultaneously being the desired end-state. Actualization of that dream requires effort; it requires getting serious in some fashion.

But getting serious requires two essential elements – focus and sacrifice. Over the decades, as our culture has accelerated at an exponential rate, the relative value of these two commodities has diminished appreciably, particularly with the ubiquity of technology, specifically the prevalence of the Internet, social media and general online culture.

Organizations get very serious about the business of distracting us and keeping us deeply engaged with them and, in so doing, growing thier revenue. And they are wildly successful. It’s a challenge to get serious when one is spending, on average, over 7 hours a day scrolling through their Insta-Twit Face-Tok account or binge watching the new hit show streaming wherever.

Moreover, exceedingly clever Chief Marketing Officers the world over have contrived and indelibly woven into the fabric of our culture the idea of instant gratification, forever perverting our expectations. Why should I have to sacrifice? Why do I have to wait? I’ve been told I should, and deserve to, have it all right now!

Do not misunderstand me, I’ve fallen prey to this many a time. That said, without focus or sacrifice, one cannot ever, really, get serious about anything. And dreams will not ever become a reality. To paraphrase Elie Wiesel, “The opposite of success isn’t failure, it is indifference.”

To close this discussion, I’ll share a very real story that exemplifies the most egregious type of this indifference – the complete absence of dreams or goals.

I was having dinner with someone last year and during the meal I inquired what her dreams, aspirations and goals in life were? She appeared shocked and put her fork down and asked me to repeat my question, which I did. A profound silence settled over the table as she sat motionless, staring blankly at me. The clock ticked its tocks for nearly a minute before she said, “I guess I don’t have any.”

In that silence I heard a sound. It distinctly sounded like the cracking of a creme brulee with a teaspoon. Then, I quickly realized it was the sound of my heart breaking for her. To live a life absent of dreams or goals? It must be truly saddening to move through life like that; not being able to have something, anything, to get serious about.

DREAM INTO ACTION

Life and dreams are both wondrous, magical things, even more so when the two collide. It is the essence, the very purpose of living, at least for me. But it does take effort, it does require getting serious from time to time. To quote another of my favorite human beings, Neil Gaiman, “You’re alive. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. Potential. Once you’re dead, it’s gone. Over.”

Life is very, very short and, as I am fond of saying, “This journey’s only one-way ticket long.” Thus, the question remains, are you going to fuck about? Or are you going to get serious?

HOW ABOUT YOU?

What are your dreams, ambitions, goals and are you serious about them? What has been the secret to your success in life? As always, I’d love to hear from you.