Monday Motivation: I Am 29 Years Old Is it Too Late?
Intro
Welcome to Monday Motivation, a series I used to do every Monday and just write a little Monday motivation for the people. Like most things in my life, I didnt prioritize correctly and just kinda quit. No one was reading anyways. Who cares? Well the truth is I cares. Committing to things I ACTUALLY want to do has been a huge issue throughout my 20s. Heres a quick review of my 20s, where I was at last year, and what I am doing to change it.
My 20s
All the way back to high school/middle school I knew I loved attention. How did I get attention? Making people laugh. Naturally I am a funny person, and I just know what will make people laugh… most of the time. Some of the time I piss people off but that comes with the territory. I have never really worried about the people that dont like me. Naturally I was attracted to stand ups comedy.
As a kid in the early-mid 2000s I thought Dane Cook was the funniest person to ever live. Then I saw Eddie Murphys “Delirious” on YouTube. Thats what I wanted to do. My horizons expanded. I started watching Bill Burr, Tom Segura, Kevin Hart, Louis CK, Bo Burnham, Chris Delia, etc. This is what I wanted to do with my life. Now I loved sports and movies and all of that, so I wanted to do that too. Honestly if you make it comedy you can do all of those things. So I graduated high school, and decided I wanted to move to New York City and do stand up. Now, I didnt know how I was going to do that, and honestly didnt put a lot of thought into it. Somewhere along the way I decided “you know what, Im gonna go to college and get a degree and if I wanted to after I could move to NYC and do that after”. Honestly I dont think that this was a mistake, but it started a trend.
So now Im in college. I moved from Las Vegas to Kalamazoo, MI. I am attending Western Michigan University. I am having a great time. First question everyone asks when you are in college is “so what are you majoring in?”. I started off saying that I was a Journalism major. Why? Well, I always wanted to be on ESPN. From the small amount of Google research I did this is how I determined that. I wasnt in love with writing then, so I sat down and asked myself what I really wanted to do. I was fucking sick at Madden. Most of my free time was spent either watching movies or rebuilding teams on Madden. Being the GM of a NFL franchise became my new dream. How do you do that? Well through my small amount of Google research I determined it was to major in Sports or Business Management. I was also very good at making money and Western Michigan had a top 25 business school at the time, so Business Management it was.
So I am now 21 years old, Im in college, I have a major, and I am having a great fucking time. My roommate, Bobby, decided to become the manager for a rap group that year. What could be more fun for a college student then having a rap group in your living room hanging out every night? Well there was one time some rando slipped in with the entourage and tried to steal our shit, but we got that sorted out. Along with all the rappers we also had other artists hanging around now. A few of these artists were comedians. Comedians younger then me at 21 who werent in college and just living in Kalamazoo and doing comedy. So Im talking to these guys and Im like man I shouldve just done this. Again I ignore myself and I say lets just get through college and enjoy myself. I do not think this was the right move. I should have just put my head down and done both and drank and partied less.
I graduate college at 23 with comedy and creative endeavors not on my mind at all. I was being corpratized (I know thats a made up word, but it means I was giving up on my dreams and becoming a part of corporate culture). Im sending out resumes left and right to NFL teams. Trying to do literally anything. I applied for 22 of the 32 teams. I got 0 responses. Admittedly I had low self esteem and didnt think much of myself, so I just stopped trying and was kinda just like “What now?”. The year is now 2017, I am all partied out (or so I thought), I wanted to get out of Michigan and start my professional life. My dad lived in Austin, which at the time was an up and coming city. I left Michigan the day after I walked for graduation.
First question everyone asks you after you graduate college is “What are you going to do now?”. Some people know that answer already and have a job or whatever, but in my opinion no one really knows what they want to do. If you go to your job every Monday hoping that its Friday so you can go drink on the weekend, I dont think you actually have a career that you actually want to do. Thats a blog for another day though, lol. I end up working at a bank. Just so you know not a lot of people go into the bank anymore. This job was ass. I did not give a fuck about pushing credit cards on people. It was soulless. I just started partying again everyday. I would go out and drink and fuck around downtown. I would go out and do a stand up set here and there at an open mic. Austin was starting to be come a big city for that. Then just go into work because it was what I was supposed to do. No real effort. No real desire to be successful. I started becoming depressed and anxious which was new. So I found a new job.
I am now 24 and I got a job working in logistics at a 3rd party logistics startup because I had done some work in logistics in college and kind of knew what I was doing. I went in with a good attitude though. I was going to work up the corporate ladder, and I kind of did. I went from being an account administrator and just kind of doing bullshit work hourly to the manager of one of the top two or three producing teams in the company. A lot of 12 hour days went into that. A lot of 6am to 6pms. A lot of months not even seeing the sun cause its down when you leave the house and its down when you leave the office. I would get home, MAYBE workout, and eat. By that point it was 8 or 9 pm. I would throw on a show but usually doze off only to be woken up by my alarm at 5 am to do it again. Was I making more money? Sure. Did it matter? Not really. I had a salary position where most of the money was tied to bonuses that fluctuated based on metrics that were constantly changing. They capped my commission for some reason without telling me even though the money we were producing was still increasing incrementally. This led me to ask myself a question eventually. Why am I doing this? I was doing stand up sets here and there but not consistently and seriously. I was 27 and hated everything about my life.
I decided to make a plan. Literally anything to get out of what I was doing. I finally decided to stop doing things I didnt want to do for money and instead do things to be happy. I started a podcast. I started this blog. I came up with an idea with my two best friends to transform a bus into a mobile content machine where we would go around the country and attend sporting events, and record podcasts, and make money doing content. I had some momentum and was putting in a lot of work transforming this school bus. Everyone was down. Everyone was excited. But like most things in my life we got closer to the date where this was all going to happen, and I was doing everything I needed to make this work and when it came down to it, it was just me standing in an empty bus. No one was serious about this but me. No one actually wanted to this but me. The anger and depression inside of me built up. I started just ruining personal relationships with people. My job sucked. I put a bunch of money into another project that was a flop. Now what? Most people would have just said gg thats a wrap. They would have gone back to the job. Admitted defeat. Eventually get married and have some shitty kids or whatever. It doesnt matter because you dont have to see them because youre always at work anyways.
28: What I Learned
I didnt do that. I was now a 28 year old man. I took all my shit and basically got rid of it. Except what I needed to live that would fit in my car. I quit my job. I took the route I had planned out on the bus and just went in my car. I just started driving by myself. City to city, just doing and seeing what I wanted to do and see. It was freeing. Slowly all the rage, all the sadness, all the frustration just started to dissipate. I slept on a couples couch in their trailer in Tucson. I hung out on the beach in California with my friend Andrew. I spent time in Denver with my uncle Peter. I attended some weddings. I reflected on what I was going to do next. I decided whatever it was, it wasnt going to be like last time.
What was I looking for? Obviously nothing was all positives. Everything kind of sucks. Its just a matter of what kind of sucks the least. I wanted to do something that, well… I actually wanted to do lol. I want a job where it doesnt matter if its Monday morning or Saturday afternoon, Im ok with doing it.
I decided I was done sleeping around. I didnt want to do the rest of my life alone. I love being alone dont get me wrong, and I think its important to learn how to be alone. It does get old though. The picture kind of started being more clear. What if I could find a career where I enjoyed what I was doing and I was with someone who I enjoyed being with and I would support her and she would support me? Writing this sounds kind of silly because like thats what most people “do” or “did” or whatever by getting married younger. Right? Well, statistically no. Most of those end in divorce.
Possibly the biggest lesson I learned at the age of 28 is all of this is supposed to suck. Hear me out. Maybe I was supposed to hate my job so I knew I didnt want to do that, and all the shit was just lessons to make me a better person. Maybe I was supposed to sleep around and not be able to keep a long term relationship so that I can realize what I am actually looking for. Maybe Im a better person now then I was at 23. Maybe, just like all those Madden teams I used to rebuild, I was just now starting out and got rid of all those figuratively bad contracts (self destructive thoughts) and old players (habits). Maybe all those people that appear to be happy with their hot girlfriends, big salaries, and nicer houses were all wrong. Or more importantly maybe that doesnt matter. Maybe I should just let them live their life how they see fit and I live mine. It doesnt matter that I think theyre wasting their life, I was wasting mine.
29 and Beyond
Kohler, I thought this was Monday motivation? All youve done is talk about how shit everything has been in your 20s. What am I supposed to be motivated to do dawg? Glad I asked myself that question in the third person. Heres the answer, the lesson, the motivation. Am I, at 29, too old to turn this franchise around? The short answer is no. Heres the long answer. I may never become as successful as if I would have decided to turn this thing around at 18 or 23 or 24 or 26 or 28. I guess Ill never know because I wouldnt have learned what I learned to get here.
I have a lot of older friends, by older I mean 30-35, and some of them are mailing it in already. The truth is thats bullshit. Life is what you make it. Happiness is what you prioritize. Start small. Write down what you want. Make a plan. I dont know exactly how Im going to do everything, but Im doing something. Just do SOMETHING.
What am I doing? How am I doing it? All of this shits nice, but it doesnt really mean anything if you dont actually do anything. I have a new stand up set written. I have new jokes. Im ready to get back out there. Im on this blog, grinding. Im on social media trying to gain a following. Im doing everything as if I have a huge following and sponsors and gigs lined up without actually having all of that. Im learning everyday. I stopped drinking and going out. All my attention and energy goes towards this. A lot of this still sucks. It just kind of sucks less and I love doing it everyday.