Free To Do Anything, Part 2

You can read Part 1 here.

I said earlier that I wasn’t writing at all during this period. That’s not exactly true. I wrote letters.

Letters of validation, desperation, rebellion, and enlightenment. Let’s go in order.

The only thing I had left, I thought at the time, was college. There I could “find myself,” meet other smart people, and become a success. It would be my chance to override my past and the mistakes I made after high school. Unfortunately, my application was written in exactly that tone. I assumed they’d recognize my genius instantly. Instead, they probably assumed I was a mess.

They were right, and I was wait-listed.

At this point I was borderline delusional, refusing to accept that it was my fault. I had asked a high school English teacher for a letter of recommendation; and, grasping at straws, I politely demanded a copy. Here’s an excerpt:

Ian is not encumbered by the material values that captivate so many young men and women; rather, he is more concerned with academic self-mastery. He is a true scholar: driven by a thirst for knowledge, Ian is enamored by ideas and is a critical thinker. He stretches himself by viewing every academic challenge as something to be sought rather than to be endured.

 

Ian does not rely on native intelligence but makes uncommon use of his gifts; he personifies persistence. As a student in my International Baccalaureate English class during high school, Ian would rework an essay, a story, or a poem until he was satisfied with its quality—in spite of the fact that his first draft would have earned him an A. Ian has a love and an appreciation of language that is rare in anyone, but especially in one so young.

Well, no problems there. It fact it was the opposite: the solution was right there, I just didn’t see it. Had I been thinking clearly, I would have read that and forced myself to answer a single question:

“What happened to that guy?”

In a moment of desperation, I reached out to a personal hero. In a way, I guess I have the internet to thank. I’m not sure it would have been so easy 20 years ago.

The reason he was such a hero to me was pretty simple: He had everything I wanted, and just plain worked harder than everyone else to get it. He knew himself, had unshakable confidence in that person and his abilities, and chose to do his life’s work on those terms. I’d always had trouble with those things, and at the time, slogging through depression, they seemed impossible. But I had already lost everything. What’s the worst that could happen? He wouldn’t respond?

But he did. I was the convenience store clerk, and Tucker Max held a gun to my head:

Here is the problem with your approach: You are placing too much emphasis on external indications of success and not enough emphasis on determining what you actually want to do.

…So many people think that if they go to the “right” school and take the “right” major they will get the “right” job and this in turn will lead to the “right” life. But you know what those people realize a few years later when they are sitting in their cubicles doing pointless bullshit? That’s not the way it works. Success in life does not come from getting into the “right” schools or getting the “right” job or from doing the thing you think you are “supposed” to do. Success in life comes from figuring out who you are and what you want from life, and then going out and getting it.

…Stop putting your sense of achievement into the hands of others or onto ephemeral and meaningless goals that society has told you are the “right” ones, and grab onto your life and go do with it what you were meant to do. I don’t know what the answer for you is, you have to find that out yourself.

I was electrified. And soon after his response, I did a few things:

I wrote a letter of resignation:

…It’s the corporate bullshit, the repetitive office work, and the feeling that I am doing nothing of real value that is so stifling, and I can’t spend another day in that kind of environment, let alone the four hours I’m in public transit making it happen. I’m just not cut from that cloth, I need to pursue what makes me happy. Effective immediately, I resign.

I let my friends and family know what was going on:

I am a writer. That is my passion, that is who I am, and though it’s taken some time to shed my hesitation, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.

And I moved back home to pursue the life I wanted.

I wish the story ended there. It would be more inspirational for you, and less humiliating for me. But if it did, there wouldn’t be a Part 3, and you’d be reading this in June 2006.