On My Life

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what the future holds for me. I guess we all go through times of thinking more or less concentratedly about that hazy place in time. Any way, my time to focus on where I'm headed is now. Don't get me wrong, it's great, I think. Tiring, but nevertheless good. I moved to Wheaton in 2003 to go to college, majored in English Literature, minored in Theater and flirted with Psychology. In my time there, I worked part time at a Red Robin when I wasn't involved somehow in a play at Arena Theater. After graduating in May 2007, I started working full-time at Red Robin, even becoming a bartender before I quit in March 2008 to begin working at a small, privately owned restaurant called Muldoon's. I loved it there, really I did. Then, two weeks ago I moved home. Now here I am, working yet another waiting job, only this time it's at a Mexican restaurant. 

Now that I'm living with my parents again, there is a lot of pressure to figure out "what I want to do with my life" and hopefully do it. My step-father asked me not ten minutes ago, "Have you been thinking about your future" I appreciate the concern from my parents, but in some way, it needs to be clear that dealing with the future, my future, is something that I need to undertake tenderly.

I understand that they see a floundering, overweight twenty-three year old who couldn't keep his finances straight and subsequently ran into a little debt, and to some degree, that's what I see too. On the other hand, I do see it with a little more grace for myself than that. I see a guy who has been out of college for 19 months and has been struggling to make it on his own and needed a little help. That's the surface problem, I think, and if that were the only problem, that I couldn't make or manage money, there is perhaps easier salvation for me.

There is a deeper problem, however, behind this move back home. I have realized - even just in the last couple weeks of being here - that, by and large, I operate (or don't operate) based on fear. Most of the inertia I feel in any given day, in any given situation results from some sort of fear. I don't get it. All I know is that I'm young, and instead of taking some serious risks in determining what I want to do with myself, I have been sitting in comfort, refusing to grow up, and avoiding any possible failure as though it were a deadly disease. What am I afraid of? That I won't succeed? Maybe. That I will succeed? It's possible. Or is the fear not related to success? I just don't know.

"To those whom much has been given, much will be expected." I was told lately that I had this verse written all over me. Damn. And here I sit. Doing nothing, again. Wasting time reading spoilers for Heroes and compulsively checking facebook. What am I afraid of? What, what, what?

I think it's having things required of me. Commitment. That's it. That's what it has to be. The dreamer part of me thinks, "Oh sure, what a fantastic life I'll live," but then the realist catches up and says, "Well, things aren't really going to be that easy for you. You're going to have to put some work into finding a career; keeping a marriage together; raising children - especially now that we're in a recession." It's this fear of commitment, damn it, that keeps me from truly enjoying to its fullness the life I have been given. My inability to say, "I'm going to stick with this until I know I hate it" is what is forcing me to sit around, letting any potential gifting I have go to waste. It's a pity, really. More than anything else, it's a pity. 

But I'm growing all the time. Figuring it out each day. Praying for courage and strength. I know that there is something fulfilling just around the corner, if only I were brave enough to look and see, and seeing, do. 

Here we go. Here's to fear being dispelled, once and for all.

In the name of the Lord.