“This is your wake-up call. You’re gonna miss it all.” – Phil Collins
Often in life, people have what is considered a wake-up call, something that shifts their line of thinking, even though that line of thinking had been going on for a very long time. Sometimes that wake-up call is because someone has achieved something you think you should have achieved first. For example, when a colleague gets promoted over you when you’ve been at the company longer. And often that wake-up call is courtesy of a life-changing event like having a baby or getting married (not necessarily in that order). In the order of life-changing events is the death of someone close to us, or who we felt a kindred spirit with. For me, that wake-up call came when Michael Jackson died. It reminded me that life is short (and 50 is way too young to die), that we all have problems but medicating them is not the answer. And it also reminded me that if I want to get things done, I have to do them myself, not wait for them to come to me, because odds are they won’t.
Then just this morning I heard that Chris Kelly, from the early-90s kiddie rap group Kris Kross had also passed. He was 34. What is it about people who are younger than us dying that really gets us thinking? Well, at least that’s what happened to me. I remember quite clearly when the duo was on the top of the charts, rapping it up to “Jump,” and taking the world by storm. Those precocious pre-teens were all over the place, with their baggy pants and their backwards attire right when I too was a pre-teen, so I identified with them. That’s what it really is, isn’t it? An identification with someone or something, a trigger that makes the event more emotional for an individual.
So why does it take us so long or certain events to finally WAKE UP? How can we live the vast majority of our lives stuck in a vacuum and going nowhere until we get that jolt? And does it happen for everyone? I would argue that it does not happen for everyone, that some people go to their graves without ever recognizing their potential, without ever seeing the pitfalls, or the promise that their existence could have had.
“I had to write the great American novel. I had a neutron bomb. I had to teach the world to sing by the age of 21.” – R.E.M.
And I woke up. On June 26, 2009, I woke up for the first time in a world where Michael Jackson was no longer breathing, and I finally began breathing myself. I took all of my creative ideas and laid them bare to observe, to dig through, and to continue working on. I got out my green pen, made great big slashes, changed so much, but I was finally doing it. I was finally getting that wake-up call, answering that call, and going for it as a writer. And I haven’t looked backwards, even though the world tries its best to put me back to sleep, to slide me back under those covers, under that duvet, but I don’t let it. And neither should you. Find what makes you happy. Write that great American novel. Teach the world to sing by the age of 21, or whatever you want (just try to avoid that neutron bomb). Just do it now. Who needs a bucket list? All you need is an alarm clock.
Wake up with me.
Sam
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