Dreams and Nightmares
Meek Mill and increasing responsibilities
Way back in the 2010s, there were few songs that would get guys more aggressively fired up than Dreams and Nightmares by Meek Mill(y). If you were about to play in a football or basketball or whatever game and it didn’t give you chills—or make you want to go smash the other team and their stupid faces—I don’t know what to tell you.
I’ve been thinking about a particular line from that song recently. The part that goes, “I used to pray for times like this.” Everything going on in my life—from the increasingly lucrative opportunities in tech, to being close to finishing a book and more—is exactly what I’ve prayed for.
But I’ve felt overwhelmed juggling everything in the past few months. I’ve also traveled a bunch, and was beaten down with the flu at one point, and was stuck in a walking boot too. The combination of all of this has had me at times feeling more exhausted than I’ve ever felt in my life. I hate it. I hate even saying it and it scares me because I’ve always been an extremely high energy person. I also hate it because I don’t even have kids! And every part of my soul want to have kids, and undoubtedly that requires even more energy, heroic amounts of it, from what I’ve heard.
One aspect of the recent exhaustion is that I recently got a promotion at work and I know I have to be a new level of locked in. It’s my first time in a closing role, and it is going to require much more effort and time.
I also think I will never not struggle with this constant question of whether it is “better” to be a jack of all trades versus locking in on fewer things. Perhaps in vain, I always strive to do more because the renaissance man ideal inspires me so much. It’s very hard to not be interested in doing different things. I can’t help it.
What I realized is something I already knew, but needed to be reminded of: the idea of trade-offs.
Would I rather not be overwhelmed with these pursuits? Would I rather be bored? Idle? Without purpose? Yes, I want to still know how to enjoy leisure. Yes, I want to heed Socrates’ warning to beware the bareness of a busy life.
But at the same time, I love this stuff.
And even if it’s hard to get that writing session in when my brain is cooked from a day of corporate meetings, looking back at a period and not being content with how much I wrote is harder. It’s hard to read books with challenging ideas, but dealing with the gross feeling of doomscrolling and fracturing my attention is harder.
It’s helpful to remember all the times you hoped and wished and prayed for what you now have. And cherish it. Consider how much you would want what you now have, reader, if you didn’t have it.
That’s what I’m doing. And listening to Meek Mill, on my way to the gym.