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The nights when we dream but can’t sleep::
I’m an average guy. Average looks, average job, average accomplishments. If we had a “Mr. Average” contest right now, I would come in, like… 4th place. I’m a lot like most people. I have my strengths and weaknesses. I genuinely excel at a handful of things and need plenty of improvement in plenty of other areas. Yep. Average guy, average life. To be fair to myself, I would probably dominate you at ping pong… so I do have that going for me. I am an agreeable person and I am generally well-liked. Average is fine with me.
I’d like to think that if someone were to examine my life, they would conclude that I am a happy person. They would be right. I am happy…
I’m just shy of 30, so I can’t make the claim of being old and wise. What I can say is that I am wiser now than I was in my early 20s. Certainly leaps and bounds wiser than I was in my teens. However- and perhaps you can relate to this- there are things that I would like to have done differently. I imagine most people are a lot like me in the following regard: I have random late nights where I can’t sleep. I lay awake and am overwhelmed by a sudden yet familiar pack of questions, “holy $#!* — what have I done with my life?!” _ “Who have I become and when did that happen?” _ “Am I as happy as I always believed I would be?” _ (and the most paralyzing and intoxicating question) _ “If I could go back and change things, when would I go back to and what exactly would I change?”
For me, these late night freak outs are mostly harmless, although in the moment they feel so heavy that I cannot breathe.
You know these nights, right?
I like to think of them as the opposite of what might happen right before I die. Rather than my actual life passing in front of my eyes, on these nights, my potential life passes in front of my eyes. The what-could-have-beens and the what-ifs. I’m sure you understand.
They are potentially dangerous roads to travel down, but they are roads that- once we approach- suck us in like evil (and articulate) black holes. These roads are inevitable and irresistible. They offer a temporary escape from the here and now, an insight into what truly drives and defines us, and the opportunity to make ourselves feel like crap. And we all need that on occasion, right?
We ask ourselves, “if I could do it all over again, would I do it the same?”
Time out…
:SIDEBAR: these roads always lead me back to considering what I have now… wife / kid / job / home / family / friends / etc… I realize that changing the past would change the present, and although I’m not fully satisfied and proud of the journey that I took, I really like where I am at now. When I spend a lengthy amount of time re-strategizing the past, I eventually begin to feel guilty. Like I am devaluing my present. That is not the intent but it almost always seems to be the result. Hence the guilt- which for me- then leads to me feeling wildly appreciative for what I do have… wife / kid / job / home / family / friends / etc…
I have to be careful to not set up camp or rent a room somewhere on the roads I visit. It’s not healthy and I’ll forget to love who and what I have now.
We can regret, repent and remember. We can visit these roads, but we can’t stay.
Let’s just agree on the following caveat, ok: I wouldn’t trade the great things I have in my life now. And I know that you wouldn’t trade your great things. We both understand that these late night roads we walk down are dead ends. We should eventually turn around and trudge back to where we were, happy to have returned. It’s just that we wanted to visit whatever little shops and storefronts that the road offered, right?
A quick introspective vacation is all it really was. Let’s just call it that, ok? Agreed? Good.
Time in…
As I lay in bed and second guess my life, I determine that yes- I could have done things better. Plenty of things actually and here is the chance to figure out the pivotal and defining moments that I would go back and change. I ask myself whether going back to the age of 25 would offer me enough time to effectively make the changes I’d like to make. Well then, how about going back to 19 years old? How about 13?! You know what, screw it- make it 7 years old. Surely at 7 I won’t have made any choices that have negatively impacted my life, right? Ok then, I’m 7 years old again. I’m in second grade and I love pizza and ninja turtles. My biggest problems are… well… nothing. I’m freaking 7 years old. I have no problems. So now that I’m 7 years old again, I know that as I grow up, I’ll eat my vegetables… I’ll clean my room…I’ll do my homework…. I won’t date this girl… I won’t hang out with that kid… I won’t say this… and I won’t watch that. I won’t make the same mistakes again… Life can finally be all that it should be and I won’t lay in bed one night second guessing the last 22 years of my life. And alas, reality follows me down that beautiful road and taps my shoulder.
I lay there and relive my biggest successes and my worst failures.
I fantasize about knowing then what I know now. I pretend that if I could just go back I’d do it differently, I would do it all SO much better. I would go back so that I could really reach my potential. {Potential}
You know these nights, right?
I lay in my bed like you lay in yours. I ask myself those same questions that you ask. Then I realize what the root of our predicament really is. When we are young, we either feel as if we won’t accomplish anything at all -or- we believe that we can accomplish anything that we want.
For me, those competing views of potential accomplishments (or potential lack of accomplishments) were not mutually exclusive. They intertwined and simultaneously influenced all of the choices I made. Due to my youthful ignorance, insecurities, and inability to know that there were many more horizons ahead, I allowed myself to never be who I was capable of being.
It’s not that I wasn’t capable.
It’s that I never allowed myself to prove how capable I actually was.
During these nights… asking these questions… walking down these roads… the nights and questions and roads that you and I know too well- I know that I can’t really go back. I know that it is a futile exercise in self evaluation. I realize that I’ve never really been who I always thought that I could be, and I realize that the reason as to why this is true is the fact that I’ve never given all of myself to anything or anyone. Not really. Not ALL of me. Like you, I have hesitated. I have doubted myself. I have played it safe.
I have sold a romanticized version of myself to others while routinely selling myself short…
too scared to be who I really can be.
There are a handful of folks that reach their potential… Folks that go for it in life. Folks that look back at their lives late at night -the way that we do- and see only moments to re-live, not moments to re-do. When I consider those people, I first think, “good for them.” Secondly I think, “you know… that could have been me.”
And then, thank God, I think, “that still can be me.” I can still go for it.
You know these nights, right?
I lay in my bed like you lay in yours. I think and worry and wonder and remember and strategize just like you. I ask myself those exact same questions that you ask yourself. I go down the same roads that you do. The roads we all go down. I realize that all of these thoughts and all of these roads are journeys that we all take. I realize this… and I am inspired.
