(I usually do this post on my birthday but due to my recent hectic schedule it was delayed)
One of the clearest memories I have of my father is when I was about 6 years old and my dad's birthday was just around the corner. He was going to turn 36.
Then I asked him how long people lived.
My dad looked at me and asked, "Do you think 36 is old?"
I said, "Yes."
Thirty-six was, after all, six of my own lifetimes.
His response was, "I'm not going to die for a long time." and we left the conversation at that.
Now here I am. 36.
Correction, 36 with two energetic kids who make me feel like I'm 50 by the end of the day. I'm always tired due to lack of sleep due to long working hours, and, well, just keeping up with the children.
I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I was 36 and single.
I imagine I would be living in Brooklyn, NY with the rest of of the children's book community who I communicate with on an almost daily basis thanks to social media. I'd probably work all day and night on book projects because I'm a workaholic. (The wife keeps me under control and makes sure I'm not killing myself) and I'd probably have more money in the bank not having to pay a mortgage or private school tuition for my kids. I'd have more books published under my belt, I'd be less stressed financially, and I may or may not be healthier. I speculate that I would have accomplished more in my professional career because I would have had more time to focus on it. Perhaps I would have published a book of greater success. Perhaps I would have ended up on the NY Times Best Sellers list by now. I don't know but sometimes feels like the grass is greener on the other side.
This is not to say I resent having a family. Quite the opposite, in fact, because I also take a lot of time to wonder if I would have the same amount of ambition as I do now. This is not to say that I would lack ambition if I were theoretically single, but I know that I myself still have as much ambition as the day I graduated art school and I think that is always a very difficult thing for a person to maintain. You've hopefully started checking things off of your list of ambitious things you want to accomplish, and as life goes on, the easy life goals are checked off early on your list. Later, when you approach the big career ambitions, the really big challenges (the ones you only dream of) become much steeper mountains to climb. There comes a point where you either realize that you are going to be that person or you're not and it's a very sobering thing.
The thing about ambition is that you rely on it so much. You achieve goals that you hope make you a better person. You do things that validate your life. Ambition is that one thing that keeps a person going in life. It's a sole motivation. I have met people who have tried to get published for years going to conference after conference, sometimes with little sign of progress. They keep going year after year because there's always that hope. That next hurdle to make you feel validated.
A person has to have something to hope for or else life isn't worth living.
I've reached a point where nothing I do is for myself anymore. My ambitions have changed. Where once my biggest dream was wanting to be a New York Times best seller has now been replaced with thoughts of "Please don't screw up this kid I'm raising"
I still have dreams of someday becoming a New York Times best seller, but it's not the top of my list anymore. Have I lost my ambition?
Perhaps?
I still have those dreams and maybe I've just come to terms that the dream will probably never happen. Maybe the road to the
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