A Ticking Time Bomb

There are three large wall clocks that hang comfortably in my New York-sized kitchen. With lively silver outlines and protruding charcoal faces, these clocks look more like floating heads of astronauts preparing to launch out to space than mere decorative pieces struggling to liven up the drab off-white backdrop. Rarely is it ever quiet enough to hear the third hands, primarily due to the fact that I live above a restaurant where someone is always raucously celebrating their birthday, but tonight there is a hush and my mind is calmer than it has been in months.

Lately, I have been incredibly aware of time passing but in a very different way than before. I watch the hours pass while I’m buzzing away in my cube but when I’m freed from the cell, time passes so much more slowly in a marvelous manner. There is an elegant transience to this city which has an amazing affect on my mind and soul. I now make it a point to open myself up to new opportunities, activities and people at every avenue. With the majority of my days being so incredibly structured, my evenings are filled to the brim with last-minute decisions and chance conversations with writers, painters, and photographers. In the last year, ironically due to the residual affects of this mindless job, I have become more at ease with experiences that demand spontaneous, uncertain, terrifyingly unpredictable creativity and passion.

Now, more than ever, I’m making the time to explore anything and everything that brings me these sensations. You can plan and schedule as much as you want; shit is not going to always sync with your day planner. Meritocracy is shit encased in a 24K gold bag. For me, it’s the unpredictability that I crave and with a little bit of inevitable planning that I have begun, I believe that the years to come are going to be epic. Kudos to those who have already found something that really inspires and motivates them (I would love to hear from you). I see too many people suspended in secure 9-5 positions, similar to those clocks in my kitchen. I’m not going to be pegged against the wall and just have aspirations about going to space; I plan to do actually do it (I’ll settle for skydiving over the Himalayas but you get my gist).

Seth Godin phrased it perfectly: “Great jobs, world class jobs, jobs people kill for... those jobs don't get filled by people emailing in resumes. Ever.”