Decide on the life you want to live, then build from there

​As a kid, I idolized the local weathermen on the six o'clock news. I'd wait to spend time with them every evening. They were as much must watch TV for me as Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley and Little House on the Prairie.

(Yes, I'm old).

In my mind, the weatherman had the dream job. And somewhere inside me, this kid wanted to be one of those weathermen too.

Then I was reminded that I really wasn't great at science, and that Jim Ganahl on channel 4 wasn't making a lot of money talking about the weather, so off to college I went to be an actuary.

I had no idea what an actuary was. I just knew it involved a lot of math and that someone in our family made decent money being one.

About three college calculus classes into that pursuit, I discovered I wasn't very good at math either. Or, maybe it's more true to say I had more desire to stay out drinking all night than go to calculus class.

Either way, the result was the same. I was no longer pursuing a life as an actuary.

I don't know what I started pursuing after that. In fact, I have a business degree from Ohio State, but I don't remember one single moment in my 'it took eleven years to get a four year degree' wanting to be anything at all in college.

Other than drunk. Drinking, I could have gotten a doctorate in that.

I don't have bitterness toward the conversations that pointed me in the direction I went. The generations that raised me and the generations that raised them - they had to fight for money. I can understand why they would think my dream come true would be not having to fight for money.

I think we know better today than ever that money chasing is far more a dream crusher than a dream maker. Still, I know that chase remains.

I was standing on the beach last winter taking pictures of the sky and the ocean. My teenage son Elliott was standing next to me - taking pictures.

I noticed a passion in Elliott that you don't often see out of him unless he's talking about the New York Giants. I asked him, have you ever thought about being a photographer?

He responded, you can't make any money being a photographer.

A darkness, a deep sadness, an overwhelming sense of fear - all of it - it rolled up through and then over me like one of the waves we'd just photographed. Only this one wasn't beautiful; it was drowning and it was toxic.

I told Elliott, dude, if you love photography, be a photographer. Decide today you're going to be a photographer, then figure out how to make a living doing it.

My part-time job is meeting with students at a local college who have violated alcohol and drug policies. I will frequently ask them, what do you want to do when you leave here?

When they say I don't know, I worry a bit. Not that every student needs to have a clear picture of the life they want after college. But if you have dreams, if you have some life you imagine for yourself, you have something to fight for.

And protect.

You have something at great risk if you decide to spend your college years drinking all day and night.

I am fortunate. Today I do live out my dreams and passions. In my writing and speaking and teaching, I have discovered the life I want to live. I am surrounded by people who encourage it. I could have never imagined feeling more fulfilled by the work I get to do.

It's not lost on me that I wouldn't have these passions if I hadn't had the struggles I went through in college and in the years before and after it.

So maybe my life, living the life I want to live, is more about God's timing than anything. Maybe God had bigger plans for me than the weather. (But please know I'd rock those live shots in a Weather Channel rain jacket while covering an east coast hurricane 😊).

Our young people face the greatest mental health crisis of our time. And I believe no small part of that is more than ever they are being pressured to succeed far more than they are being inspired to dream.

They are being pressed to live lives imagined for them instead of being offered opportunities to imagine the life they might want to live.

Maybe that's because too many of us are still trying to figure out the lives we want to live as well.....

I think we would all be well served to do a hard stop. Stop and wonder, what is the life I want to live. And then, what can I do to make a living within that life?

It might be the best favor we ever did for ourselves.

I know it would be the best favor we could ever do for our kids.