A Box Set Complete and some Fatherly Advice

Doing something you enjoy for a significant part of your life is really important - obviously. Quite often the process is as much fun as the final result. You know, being so engrossed in something that you're fully focused on it and hours fly by.  

A case in point is this image below - which is supposed to replicate a box set of my books in this now completed series (Yay! - and yeah, okay, shameless plug). 

It took hours of design and manipulation with Photoshop to take several flat images and get it to a point where I was happy.  But gee it was fun. Not one stupid, unhelpful or annoying thought entered my head - just the peace and calm of focused attention. Bliss for an exceedingly chatty mind.

So anyway, I finally finished the last book of the Super Ninja series some time back in 2021 - and I decided to make an e-book only box set which has been out since Christmas 2021. I haven't advertised it as the point of the project was to: (1) have a satisfying completion to the whole story and, (2) it was really a legacy project for my kids (and their grand kids if my kids ever have kids) - you know - another way of getting my kids to know more about their 'old man' when they get to an age where they care about those sorts of things. 

Like I said, I enjoyed creating the artwork and it highlighted to me the fact that, if at all possible, you should try and find a job that involves doing things that you really like. It will have a MASSIVE effect on your whole life. I didn't find that job, and it gnaws at me every day (while I spend hours on my unsatisfying job) - so I sort of make up for it (in small part) by doing things that I do enjoy in my spare time. 

As you can see by the cartoons below (something I enjoyed doing),  which I drew about 25 years ago, the topic was gnawing at me way back then... 

This one below was a little more recent...

I like the darkness of it. :)

I'm a little disappointed in myself that those early life choices (and essentially listening to the negativity of others and not trusting my gut when I thought I'd finally found my path) still gnaws at me today. But mostly I'm disappointed in myself for accepting that fate - or at best compromising at every turn even after I did know what was in my heart (or gut). 

It's not always easy of course. You may get to a certain stage of life where there's other responsibilities greater than yourself.... 

So this is where my fatherly advice comes in. If you feel like you've mis-stepped, but you're in a position to change your direction  - do it. Don't delay. If I'd have trusted my gut as a 20 year old ... I can only imagine ... because the path that I wanted to take is still the path I would take now.

As for me now, I can't go back in time and relive that decision no matter how much I may want to - so the best I can do is make the most of my time from this moment on. There's still time to find that job you love. It may mean less money or some other sacrifice - but it's really no sacrifice for what you are gaining in your life. The emotional gains over the material - that sense of doing what matters most to you as opposed to doing something just for the money.

The problem I've had with sucking it up and doing the job I don't like, but filling the void with activities I do like - is it still takes away time with family. I'm always compromising family time and "me" time. juggling between the two and feeling I'm not giving enough to either. Best I had followed my passions and found a job somehow in whatever that was - then I would have both loved my job and had more time with my family. Yep, that old adage rings true - "Find a job you love and never work a day in your life". Damn you - old adages - you were right again. 

Look, I could probably keep going on about the whys, the pros, the cons, etc of this decision or that. But essentially, this is a note for my teenage sons to not make the same mistakes I made. Or if they hear me complaining to them about some of the choices they're currently making as it pertains to their future employment - to maybe point me back in the direction of this blog.

So ... I think I've already provided the fatherly advice I promised in the title, but I'll add this little snippet from a post I started writing about 5 years ago about parenting but never finished. Upon re-reading, it's a good reminder for me as a parent of two young men soon to be looking at making their way in the world. It comes from Farnham Street and kinda fits with what I have been saying.

"Accept their passions, any passions. Most families really don’t let their kids follow their passions. They assume the parents’ passion is the children’s passion, and usually it’s not. You should allow them to be outliers in their dreams.” - Byron Trott

Anyway, that's enough from me. I hadn't actually planned on writing another post (almost 7 years after my last one) but I got caught up in the moment. It wasn't time wasted.