Be A Dreamer and A Responsible Adult

“Play your horn for 10 minutes a day.  See where it goes…”

I would say this to my step father periodically when I first left the military.  He played the trumpet when he was in grade school and was a part of a band that recorded at least one album that I know of.  Sometimes I’d hear him play but it was rare and never consistent.  He passed away a few weeks ago.  He was almost 74 years old.

I loved him.  I’m going to miss him.  From about age 8 on, he was my father.  He and my mother had problems early in their relationship.  Probably up until I was 18 and went off to college.  There was often quite a bit of tension in the house because he and my mother were in conflict for some reason.  However, my relationship with him was always pretty good.  I respected him because he worked hard and was loyal to his family.  

In my college years I began to notice a different side of him.  What I noticed initially in his words was a sense of bitterness and/or regret.  There were specific times when he would reflect on walking away from his music career.  He stopped playing music decades ago because his wife at the time was pregnant. He felt he needed to focus purely on a stable income to support his family.  He put his passion down because it didn’t provide immediate financial security.  In many ways it was a sensible choice. However, I could always hear the regret in his voice for letting his dream go.    

He worked in the hotel and restaurant industry for 50 plus years.  He was professional.  He was always on time.  He dressed professionally.  He was well respected by his coworkers.  He once had an old pickup truck. It broke down and couldn’t be fixed.  One of his coworkers, who knew his son (me) was serving in the military, decided to gift him a Ford F-150.  He drove that truck for 10 years.  His coworkers respected and appreciated him. He believed in doing his job to the best of his ability.  I know he didn’t enjoy his job because he said so periodically.  But he believed in providing and he believed in honoring his commitments.  I respect him deeply for this.  However, I really believe he would have died a happier man had he given more energy to taking better care of his health and playing music.   

He enjoyed music.  Furthermore, he enjoyed being a musician.  I never once saw him excited about heading off to work.  But when he would talk about music, his whole being would light up.  Why not give ten minutes a day to that?  He had a huge vinyl record collection.  He had a vintage reel to reel player, 8 track player, and record player.  He enjoyed collecting and listening to music.  But I think his soul was in playing music and being with other musicians.  I think he missed it a lot.

My recommendation to him to just play for ten minutes a day, a few times a week, was similar to what I do with people trying to implement exercise habits.  Start slow with a very simple target and let the momentum build over time.  Just like I tell people to commit to walking for 10 minutes daily or doing a few stretches daily, I was trying to get him to make a small regular investment in an activity that he knows makes him happy.

Of course, it isn’t that simple.  He would have been in his early 60’s when I first started encouraging him to begin playing his horn again.  He probably struggled with the fact that he couldn’t make the same sound with the instrument that he did when he was younger.  His lunge capacity and the strength of his lips against the mouthpiece would have been totally different from how he remembered it when he was young.  He also smoked cigarettes like a chimney. I’m sure that had something to do with his diminished capacity.  Also, it probably haunted him that he ever stopped playing.  Therefore, picking up the instrument at a later point in life probably was both exhilarating to some extent and heartbreaking in another way.  (Like I always say, suffering in life is guaranteed.  You might as well suffer for something you want to do.)  

There’s also the fact that he was a Baby Boomer. That generation, in my experience, was indoctrinated in the idea of job stability over all other things.  It didn’t matter what the job was as long as it provided a stable income and some measure of a middle class life.  This is my opinion and it’s a generalization about a big group of people, so, take it with a grain of salt.  However, when I was quitting Engineering, it’s people of that era that were the most shocked and resistant to such a course of action.  It seems like for them, being happy or content in life was highly contingent upon the material existence your job afforded you.  What a person does to achieve that material existence seems inconsequential.  

I think this mindset has started to shift in my generation (millennials) and younger generations.  But I think we have to be careful not to swing too far the other way.  I think we have to be careful about chasing the feeling of happiness or living with the belief that our passions must bring us an income.  I think we have to develop a ‘both and’ mentality.

You can chase a dream and be a responsible adult, simultaneously.  Why do we believe that being a responsible adult and having a passion or a dream, are mutually exclusive things?  I think this belief is what my stepfather fell prey to and it seems fairly clear to me that it robbed him of a lot of joy in his life.

I don’t think that my stepfather would have picked up his trumpet and suddenly have been a professional musician.  But I do think playing, teaching, and being in the local music community would have made him a happier man.  I don’t know exactly what to call it anymore: passion, dream, interests, hobbies etc.  It seems like there are things in life we must do in order to live (have an income, keep the house clean, cook food).  There are also things in life that we do because they make life more enjoyable and satisfying.  It also seems like these things have the same result.  If you don’t work and make money, you won’t be able to meet basic needs and there won’t be any joy.  But, if nothing in your life is fun and enjoyable for its own sake, there probably won’t be any joy there either.  It seems like we have to work to find a sustainable balance.

I try to keep a very sober mind about this endeavor that I’m involved in.  I write every day.  In times past and, hopefully here in the very near future, I’ll be spending time speaking and podcasting.  There won’t be any immediate money coming from any of it and that may never change.  I can hope for it but I can’t control it.  I keep doing it because I love it for its own sake.  I would regret it if I stopped because there was no money in it.  

I love my stepfather and I’m going to miss him deeply.  He modeled being stable for your family.  He modeled being loyal to your family.  I will take that lesson forward in my life.  I will also learn from his mistakes.  I’ll treat my body with respect and care.  Also, I’ll treat my passions with respect and care.  I will search for and model what it means to be a Dreamer and a Responsible Adult, at the same time… because they are not mutually exclusive.  

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