The "Good" Life

I want to take a step away from some of the more typical topics on this blog. Instead of dealing with my experiences with leaving Christianity and my reasons for doing so- I want to explore my past expectations and my current position in life. If nothing else as a way of exploring myself and how it ties to who I previously was, and perhaps it will be valuable to someone else as well.

In eighth grade I had an English teacher named Mrs. Keyser who had the class create what she called a "Genealogy Book". We wrote according to a variety of prompts over the course of the year while proofreading and helping our fellow students edit their writings. One of those prompts asked us to imagine our future. 

As I read over this essay on my future that I wrote at 14, I realize that I have all but abandoned the things I thought were important. I find that as a child, I saw my future as a series of accomplishments that led to a good life. There was some kind of "good life" aesthetic that I wanted to achieve through a series of events modeled for me by those who went before. For me, these events were the brush strokes that would paint the picture of my future. I knew what I wanted to the picture to look like but completely misunderstood how I was going to get there.

In my most immediate future, I imagined I would graduate high school and go to college. I was so certain of my graduation from high school that it never occurred to me to even write include it in an essay about my future. Instead I skipped straight to college and graduation from there. However, when I was 18 years old, in the January of my senior year, I dropped out of high school. My reasons for doing so are not important to this discussion, but I may discuss this at a later date. Regardless, even after dropping out of high school, I still believed I would go to college which is why that summer I took the test to get my GED.

One thing led to another over the years and I soon realized that going to college in the immediate future was out of the question. Even if I got accepted, and I was fairly sure I would get accepted, I would likely not be able to secure financial assistance through grants or loans and I certainly couldn't afford it without assistance. The circumstances that led to this conclusion aren't important, but it led me to attempt to begin building credit for myself. I took out a couple credit cards and began trying to prepare my credit score for the eventual student loans that I was so sure would come in the future.

In the meantime, I was working at a fast food restaurant where I was seeing some success. I know that fast food employee wasn't in that final picture that I was still focused on. In that picture I was attempting to paint I was a minister. Like my father, I believed I would have more than one occupation- I thought I'd work in visual media and ministry. My father was always "bi-vocational" when I was growing up. For those who don't know he had a full time job as a computer programmer as well as being in ministry full time for the majority of my childhood. He used to say, "Programming is the hobby that pays, Ministry is the career that doesn't." I imagined a similar life for myself though I thought I'd work in video production while also working in ministry.

To that end, I began to independently study everything I could about video production and the Bible. I bought books on scriptural exegesis, theological differences in denominations, as well as a variety of translations of the Bible. I split my free time between learning about the Bible (something I thought would prepare me for ministry) and learning about video production. I saved up some money and bought as much production gear as I could afford and used DIY plans on the internet to make whatever I wanted but couldn't afford. 

I thought I was taking the necessary steps to prepare myself for my eventual career. As it turns out, I was good at my job in fast food and was promoted several times. The increased income made it harder for me to want to leave my job. It wasn't long before I realized I wasn't going to go to college at all. I remember filling out the application, writing an essay on why I wanted to go to that college and putting it all in an envelope. All I needed to do was write a $75 check, put it in the envelope and drop it in a mailbox. I never did that. The envelope sat in my room for nearly 6 months, a constant reminder that I was deviating from the path I thought I needed to follow to achieve that beautiful picture of a satisfying future.

At this time, I had to switch my focus. I couldn't become a minister without a college degree, and since I wasn't going to college anytime soon, I figured I should start working on my career in video production. I focused all my energy on building up my gear and skills. I started freelancing to make some extra money on the side while working my day job. I was certain that this would be my career, the "hobby that pays." It turns out, that after pushing myself to this end for nearly a decade, I decided that in 2021 I wouldn't do any further freelance video work. 

I didn't do this because I failed- in fact I spent nearly 3 years working full time on video production. I made enough money to remain financially stable and avoid going back to a day job. Until the pandemic started in 2020 and I found myself working at a grocery store (again). As I pondered my next move- realizing that my current career path required me to leave the company I worked with and either find something else in the video/marketing industry or to focus on the industry that I was so familiar with- food service. I made the decision to leave video/marketing behind in favor of a job as a fry cook at a local supermarket.

This didn't fit the final picture. It seemed this was the ultimate deviation. Not only had it been 8 years since I left high school (in January 2012) and I still hadn't even started a college journey, but I had thrown away both potential vocations in favor of one that had a much lower ceiling. In making this decision, I condemned myself to a far lower potential salary. It wasn't like I found some love for cooking or some satisfaction in this career path that was missing in the others- but rather because of a shift in my life philosophy.

I previously thought that I needed to make $80k per year to be successful. I thought success was dictated by a number. I thought this number was the only way to get the rest of the picture I had painted for myself as a child. I have referenced this image of the good life that I had without ever really explaining what was so good about it. What I was really striving for was the family in the picture. A wife who loves and supports me, someone I can support- not just financially but emotionally, intellectually, and physically. Someone I can give all that I have to give to. Someone I can share my life with- to be a companion through the good and bad. In this picture, my wife and I would have a few children- at the time the thought was 3- but the number wasn't as important as the idea of fatherhood. I spent my entire life idolizing this idea of being a mentor to my children. To creating a life, protecting that life and providing for it. Not just materially, but in the immaterial things as well. In this picture was a family, happy, stable and proud.

What I have come to realize is that I don't need to go to college to have that. I don't need to be a minister or work in video production to be financially stable. I don't need to fit some culturally constructed mold to have what matters. Now, at 27, I have a wife, a beautiful daughter, and another child on the way. We own a home. Though my job is not exactly what I thought I wanted, it satisfies the financial need I am required to fulfill to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. A lifestyle that doesn't require me to constantly be hustling towards the next job or work late nights and early mornings. No more staying up till 3AM to meet some deadline for a video client. No more coming home from a day job just to go back to my home office while my baby grows up without her father. No more spending every day off I have in my office for 8-10 hours sending emails, taking phone calls, scheduling shoots, prepping my gear, cleaning and repairing, hustling every spare minute I have to get that next job- to make a little more money. No more unnecessary stress.

As it turns out what really mattered all along were the principles that the picture was painted with, not the surface level aesthetic. I thought I wanted to be a college graduate, working in ministry, but that was only driven by the desire to have a job that would adequately provide for my family. I wanted financial stability and that's how I thought I'd achieve that end. As it turns out, I can satisfy that need with much less effort and stress than I had previously thought.

This may not seem like a huge revelation to many people, but for me, this realization freed me.

I feel like this blog is incomplete. There is so much more that I could say about the change in my perspective on life. I could go on endlessly explaining why the new things I've learned about economics, psychology, ethics, politics and myself have shaped me into a person who rejects the idea that success is equated with excess but instead I'll leave it here. Thank you for reading this little self reflection.