I only write on this blog when I am moved or inspired. When that happens, I write as fast as I can think.
It has been a fairly difficult few months. The months spanning from November which is Jakes birthday month and the beginning of the holidays thru February 22nd. On that day in 2007 on my 50th birthday, Jake was diagnosed with the Stage 4 brain tumors. These months are the most difficult times of the entire year for me. It is difficult to know what to do on Jakes birthday or on the day he left us so I usually end up at Moonlight beach standing where I did on the day he died, I took a stick this year and engraved "Hi Jake" into the sand. My kids and my niece Teresa met me there. To my surprise the ever reliable "Fish" one of Jakes best friends and his mom also showed up.
I was pretty much at a loss as to what to do or say, so we watched the sunset and then I left.
During the day and after I left I kept thinking, "What do I do now?" At the age of 52, I had gone from a completely different life with an intact family, house, home theatre and two good jobs to renting half a duplex with Alex, my niece Teresa and another roommate. All of us shared the rent to make ends meet. After Jake died I found it too difficult emotionally and financially to stay in the duplex so I moved out to San Marcos. There was an interesting side effect to losing so much. I felt like I was 20 years old again and starting over. This was not a good feeling. My financial picture was practically non existent, and I found myself in the position of doing small side jobs in order to make ends meet. The combination of the economy and my age had made it very difficult to find a job I would like to pursue. I was even turned down by Best Buy as a service technician 3 times, difficult to believe as my old company Captain Video at one time did the majority of their repairs.
While applying for these and similar positions I kept feeling a nagging worry to be certain I make the correct choice in what would be my next career. Although I felt like a teenager again financially, I was not, and was trying to make good choices as each day I get older. But I was conflicted. Should I go back to what I know, Tv repair and Home theatre design or try something I really like, something creative. My answer at that time came in the form of "The Fright Institute" a joint venture haunted house with pneumatics and electronics that I designed and built myself.
The Fright Institute ran the month of October 2010 after 5 months of preparation. Although it was very well received by the public, it did not profit over it's expenses and I returned afterwards to the task of finding something else to do.
Although not financially successful, The Fright Institute provided for me something that I had been missing for most of my life and that was my desire and ability to be creative. I proved to myself that I could follow my passion of being creative and that it would be well received.
I continued on for the search of what to do next while also continuing to try to resolve in my mind the reasons that so many things had changed so suddenly in my life.
Then, just a few weeks ago, I was finishing up some work with a client who was experiencing many unexpected changes in their life. Eventually the subject of Jake came up and I shared my experiences of the last few years. Whenever I do this, people are shocked at the amount of changes that occurred in my life and ask me how I deal with it. I explain that I deal with it to honor Jake who never complained even to the end. I explain that I know I have only two options. One is to fall down a hole, or the other is to climb out and keep going. Live the best life I can. Jake would want that as would the rest of my family. I explained to my client that I have learned two of the most important things in my life. The first is that life changes. It can change in the blink of an eye but it changes. All that is important is right now, this second. This is all we really have. It is not the houses or cars or home theatres (well maybe the home theater's a little). It is the cup of coffee you have with a friend. The sunset you watch or the beautiful day you see when you walk outside. What is important is the present. The present is all we have. The future is unknown. A sad example is the tsunami in Japan as so many people and their belongings were washed away. Some may hopefully have been enjoying the company of friends, or that cup of coffee I talk about and then life changed.
I left my client with those words. Then I went to Frys to get some electronic parts. I had not left my client for more than 20 minutes when I got a call. One of my best friends had killed himself. Life changed once again. I was deeply saddened and I thought immediately "Life changes"
This morning I was reading an article about Steve Jobs the head of Apple. I had never been and Apple guy but both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have always fascinated me. When I read Bill Gates book "Business At The Speed Of Thought" the logical part of my personality was so impressed at how he used computers to automate life and business and how I had also unknowingly used many of his basic ideas to automate my own businesses. I kept saying out loud "Hey I'm already doing that! (Of course he is doing a little better than me)
Then this morning I watched a short speech on YouTube by Steve Jobs given to the Stanford graduating class. Again I was moved but this time in a more important way. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs seem to have different motivations for the way they run businesses. Bill's seems to be more business oriented while Steve seems to involve more passion for his product. This is at least the way I perceive it. The combination of the two thought processes is very interesting and I wonder what a joint venture would look like.
It seems as though I am going off on a big tangent but here is my point the second of my "Two very important things"
Follow your passion!
Both men followed their passion. Find your passion in life and do it. If it cannot be in your job, make sure it is somewhere in your life. Life changes in an instant. Make sure that what you decide to do for you life is something you love. Your life could turn out to be very short or very long so live for this second and follow your dream. This might mean that you go to college, a trade school or neither. Get to where you want to go by looking at the goal and never stopping.
Live the happiest life you can to honor Jake and all those that we have lost or those who are less fortunate than us.
It is difficult for me to get this across in writing. The video below does a much better job. It is what inspired this blog entry. Take a moment and watch it.
