CHAPTER TWO— THE MENTORS
Part One — Am I happy?
AM I HAPPY?
It was the final episode of the seven series hit comedy show “30 Rock”, written and staring Tina Fey.
I had been an avid fan of the show for over five years and attribute much of my young adult personality and superficial desires, to my imitation of one of the lead characters, Jack Donaghy.
Jack, played by Alec Baldwin, is a General Electric, then Kabletown corporate executive, and is the head of NBC. In the final episode of the show, he becomes the CEO of the fictitious Kabletown assuming he now has everything he wants.
This was certainly my belief at that point in my life: Run a large multinational corporation, have plenty of money, and everything else in life will fall into place.
During the episode, Jack starts questioning whether he is happy. Just by asking the question, the audience realises he is not. He begins by dividing his life into different categories “career, family, sex and relationships, philanthropy, hobbies and faith. He then proceeds to maximise his experiences across these activities only to realise that he is still not happy.
I myself saw this, and appropriated his categories, and realised that I too wasn’t happy. I wasn’t giving anything back to the community, I wasn’t having any sex, I wasn’t living peacefully with my family, (especially my sister), I didn’t have any hobbies, I wasn’t really fit or strong. The only thing I had going for me was the development of my career. I didn’t even like my own hair and had to pay someone an exorbitant amount to tell me to accept my red hair and learn to love it.
“You don’t want to be like everyone else do you?” Stephen would say.
I couldn’t believe it; all that I was building towards and spending my energy on was not making me happy, and if I lived out a life similar to Jack Donaghy, it would never make me happy, and it would never be meaningful.
The first thing I did to rectify this issue was to take up boxing. It seemed like a logical thing to do. At first I was dreadful. I was uncoordinated, unfit, and with an ego that needed to be knocked out of me.
I didn’t know it at the time, but boxing was so good for me, because it brought me into the moment, into the now. Something that I didn’t do often.
With my internship approaching at the same firm I would 18 months later leave, I had a renewed sense of what I was doing with my life. However it wasn’t until I watched a life-changing YouTube video one afternoon after work that I realised what I had been doing, where I was going, and why I would never like it.
