Driving down the Santa Monica 10 Freeway one rainy morning to a meeting, I had an epiphany. It was the epiphany of epiphanies, and my mind cracked when I discovered it.
Through my whole life, I saw the human condition as a form of eternal suffering. We we born to suffer, life is to suffer. We cannot grow if we do not suffer. Nothing is earned if we do not suffer.
Life is a path of struggle, and one that is usually traveled alone. Everyone has their own path, no one person is a mental or physical equal. We may cross paths, and we may have even parallel paths, but no one’s path is truly the same as another’s.
I grew up hating the path of a human. I saw it as a boring, ultimate punishment for living. My parent’s didn’t give me life, they gave me a prison sentence. Why? Because it was easier to live the pre-ordained life than have to suffer to get the things that you really want.
I discovered the pre-ordained life at the age of 11: You’re born, you grow up, you graduate from college, you get a job, get married, have kids, retire, and then you die. You only have to become a slave to corporate society to get that pre-ordained life.
Want to be an astronaut? You have to suffer. Wanted to be a movie star? You have to suffer. Want to be anything but average? You have to suffer. I hated this fact. I wanted life to be easy, but it was anything but.
Then, at the age of 15 I discovered filmmaking, and I enjoyed the process and final outcome. But mainly just the final outcome. As a beginning filmmaker, I dreaded the filmmaking process. I loathed all the work I had to put in. I hated having to write the script, call the actors, arrange a location, shoot on a no-string budget, shoot on a crappy camera, edit on a crappy system, only to show all of that hard work to a couple of friends and family members. Hated it.
But then, something happened. I became use to it. Didn’t yet love it or enjoy it, but accepted it. But things have shifted. Now, making a short film wasn’t just to make a short film, it was a means to an end, the end getting a contract, an agent, a script bought, winning a festival, getting millions of dollars, getting that big budget studio film deal.
Suddenly, everything became an means to an end. I began to only think of it in those terms, I only saw the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and ignored the wastelands that I would have to travel to get to it. But is it a wasteland?
Because I wanted to get to the end of the filmmaking rainbow, which is having a studio deal, I wanted to cut at least 7 years (of the average 10 years for a filmmaker) off my path by starting my own business. Again, I started to hate this path too, because I only saw it as a means to an end. I realized this was the shorter but deadlier and gruesome path: to start your own business, but I didn’t care. My goal was to get to the pot of gold as fast as possible. I didn’t want to spend 10 years of my life delivering office mail, 10 years of brewing coffee, 10 years of hoping, praying waiting. That’s not me. I don’t wait, I hate to wait. So it was making a business, which I believed (still do) is my path to freedom.
However I quickly realized it what going to be harder than I previously thought. I was going to spend countless hours hassling potential clients. I was going to have to spend days upon days of having to networking with nobodies to get to a somebody. I was going to have to spend money to get people’s attention, ads, business cards, websites, etc. I was going to have to give up my dream projects in the short term, to be able to produce them in the long term. Business = Sacrifice.
Through out all of this means to an end, I sacrificed many a days of hanging out with friends, meeting girls, and making relationships, only because I thought I had to. I saw them as distractions from my pot of gold. But then I realized the amount of time I would invest to have a relationship, and the women I would have to “solicit” to go out with me, and girls I would have to date to find the right one – I started seeing all of that as a means to an end as well.
The epiphany I had on that rainy day was this:
I saw my filmmaking career as a means to an end.
I saw my business career as a means to an end.
I saw my relationships as a means to an end.
I use to thing of these paths as individually, but now I realized I had created a habit of seeing my paths only as a means to an end. And I realized that was no way to live. Because then what? What happens when I reach the end of the path? What if the devil offered me the perfect (shortest) path to the pot of gold? I’d have everything I’d want, the perfect (successful) filmmaking, the perfect (lucrative) business, the perfect (hottest) girlfriend. If the devil offered me these things? Would I take it? Would you?
I probably would. But then what? I’d forget about them, I’d take them for granted, like a rich spoiled kid.
Ever since the age of 15, when I decided I would not live the pre-ordaind life and take the road less taken towards being the non-average, I had seen my paths as a means to an end. But now, after this epiphany, and realizing my flaw of seeing everything as a suffering to get through just to get to the pot of gold – the epiphany had opened my eyes and I now see the wasteland as a lush garden of eden, and the pot of gold merely filled with fool’s gold.
I have read alot of meta-physical existential stuff, and how we all have something called a soul, and shit like that. That’s all nice and dandy, but whats the point of being an eternal being trapped in a mortal body?
Supposedly, [I've read that] being an eternal being is really, really, really, really boring. Because everything you want (or don’t want) is at your command. Everything you wish for is POOF, there. Sooooooooo, not to be bored anymore, our eternal selves decided to be human, for some reason. They didn’t want everything to be at their fingertips, they wanted to earn everything. Because, it’s only through earning everything does an eternal being grow. Also, after you die, you take everything you’ve learned and earned (spiritually) back to the Source, because the Source LOVES your yummy experiences.
I thought, Okay, that’s all fine and dandy, but I still want my pot of gold!…NOW! It won’t do me no good after I’m dead.
However, it didn’t make perfect since until I had the epiphany. It was like a flood of logic, and truth that overwhelmed my mind, and made it feel at peace.
I wish I could make you experience my epiphany the way I did, but alas, you must experience it on your own. But imagine being a person that hates waiting for the things that you truly desire, and hates having to put in the time and effort to get them, only to realize that your whole belief system has been flipped upside down with one single line of thought.
Now, I’m not a lazy person when I comes to doing the things I truly want, like making a film, but I don’t want to do menial tasks just to be offered the chance to possibly, maybe, probably make a film in the near future, when the conditions are right. Fuck that. I want my shit now, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to do it, in the shortest amount of time possible, BUTTTT, after my ephiphany, the core of my belief structure has been shaken.
I now look at doing menial tasks in a different light. I look at putting up flyers for my business, and having to do days upon days of boring networking not as bad as I use to think of them.
I knew about the old saying “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” I knew it, but I didn’t believe it. Now I do.
I knew about the old saying “It’s not about the kill, it’s about the hunt.” I knew it, but I didn’t believe. Now I do.
Why do I believe now, and not before? What exactly changed my mind?
Because having the mentality of doing something only because it’s a means to an end doesn’t get you anywhere. Trust me, I’ve had the mentality for years, and it only makes you cautious, picky, and a time waster. Why a time waster? Because you’re always waiting for the perfect time. You’re waiting for the time you’ll meet the perfect girl, the time you’ll get the perfect job or client, the time you’ll get the perfect script or film gig. But if you’re always hoping that the best will come to you, it’ll never happen. If you’re not actively seeking it by going out to the trenches and digging, you’ll never know where it is, and this is the concept my mind has been having trouble swallowing for a long time.
I guess my whole point to this entire post is that viewing your path as a path you must suffer and endure only to get to the pot of gold will not make you a happier person when you reach the end. You must discover not how to get to the end of the rainbow as quickly as possible, but to see that the end of the rainbow is not the fun part, it’s how you get there.
TIPS ON HOW TO REACH THIS EPIPHANY
Revaulate your life, like I did, and question if it’s your perspective that’s been holding you back in different aspects of your life: spiritually, physically, socially, and financially.
If you hate your job. Why do you hate it? If you changed your perspective on why you’re doing it and flipped it upside down, would you still hate it?
Do you hate your life? Why do you hate it? Do you consider yourself a failure in every venture you undertake? Realize that it’s not what you do or even how you’re doing it, but its the”why” you’re doing it that’s making you misstep.
If you hate your current lot in life, and wish you could do better, and know that you can, the only way you can reach this epiphany is by realizing that what you’ve been doing up to this point hasn’t been working, and that you need to adopt a new mindset. To put it in geeky terms, you need to install a new version of software in your MPU (Mind Processing Unit – clever yes?).
The only difference between a poor person and a rich person (By rich I mean mentally and/or financially) is by the way that they think. And the only way to upgrade your thinking is by reading lots and lots of books. But even after you’ve read them, its also about applying them. Here are some I recommend:
HOW TO GET RICH
THINK AND GROW RICH
RICH DAD, POOR DAD (See the pattern yet?)
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR SMART PEOPLE
THE E-MYTH
FOUR HOUR WORK WEEK
WHO MOVED MY CHEESE?
These should do it for now.
And if you can’t read or hate reading, then you probably wouldn’t be reading this by now. But let’s say you did, then your eternal self probably hates you, and you’ll NEVER EVER find your rainbow filled path with a pot of gold at the end.
I'm an LA filmmaker and USC alumni. I blog about my life as a filmmaker, human, and business mang. Read my shit, son. No related posts.
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