Author Archives: Steven

Coloring Outside the Lines

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Our lives are a work of art.

Each day, a new stroke of color added upon the canvas of our lives; the bright colors representing good times and the muted colors, times of struggle.  As our lives play out, the picture changes; a seamless metamorphosis into the person we are today.  Our lives are a canvas, yet we treat them more like a coloring book, always careful not to slip across predetermined societal boundaries.  We follow the rules and try to live up to other people’s expectations, sacrificing our identity and ignoring our authentic selves.

But our life hasn’t always been this way.

As a child, we ignored the lines in our coloring books; they presented no resistance to our crayons.  We scribbled and laughed, free to create without limitation.  As we got a little older, our parents taught us the “proper” coloring technique.  They praised us for staying inside the lines and our desire for affirmation killed our passion.  From then on  we restrained our enthusiasm and creativity, coloring diligently within the lines so that we might please our parents.

This was our first lesson in conformity: stay in the lines, follow the rules.

Things haven’t changed much since that first lesson.  Today we’re expected to assimilate at work and in our community.  There isn’t room for creativity and individuality.  We’re expected to follow the rules; go to college so that we might have a great career, settle down with a nice girl, get married and have 2.2 children.

It’s all anyone expects of you…but what if this isn’t the life you want for yourself?

It’s your life…paint your canvas however you wish.  If that means stepping outside of the box to find happiness, it’s time to do it.  Forget about the social expectations.  You weren’t born into this world for the pleasure and satisfaction of other people.  You don’t have to follow society’s rules and there’s no reason to buckle under the pressure to conform.  Be yourself, do what you love, be who you want to be and find happiness in your own way.  Erase the social restrictions that have been imposed upon you.

You don’t have to stay inside the lines.  Live life on your own terms and by your own guiding principles.  Life is too short to live according to someone else’s wishes.

“If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

Another Plastic Christmas

11 November 2010

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Before we know it, many of us will be sitting around the Christmas tree opening countless gifts from friends and family.  If we’re lucky, someone will have read our wish list and whatever it is that we’ve lusted over for the past couple of months will be among the pile of presents.  We’ll tear through the carefully wrapped paper in anticipation and squeal with glee when we finally find that piece of plastic we’ve been waiting for.  And when the chaos of opening presents has finally subsided, the floor littered with the dead remains of wrapping paper, we’ll feel like we’ve just had a great orgasm; both exhausted and satisfied.

Is the meaning of Christmas to just buy a bunch of shit for each other?

Over the years I’ve become increasingly frustrated with the holiday season.  Mindless consumption.  Thoughtless gifts.  Excessive spending.  A complete lack of gratitude.  Have you ever asked yourself why you’re even buying gifts in first place?  Is it out of obligation?  Social pressure?  A desire to conform?  A need to create an image?  Do you feel that Christmas wouldn’t be the same without gifts under the tree?

Can you even remember what gifts you received last year for Christmas?  And from whom you got them?

This year I’d like to try something different.  Instead of the usual orgy of presents under the tree, I’d like to convince everyone within my circle of influence (that means you!) to celebrate the holiday season in an unorthodox way, without presents for each other.  My hope for this Christmas is that I can dismantle the “circle of giving” and instead convince my family to pool our money together to buy a cow for a family in Africa.

Tonight was the first time word of my plan reached ears other than our own as Erin shared the idea with her family.  I was disappointed to hear that the suggestion of buying a cow was somehow so absurd that the person on the other end of the phone couldn’t stop laughing and had to pass the phone on to someone else.

I have to be honest and say that I’m not sure how buying a cow for a family in need is anymore ridiculous than buying scented candles or any other thoughtless gift for someone who probably isn’t going to appreciate it anyway.  It’s only ridiculous because we haven’t stopped to question our traditions.

Wouldn’t joining together as a family to make a difference in the lives of total strangers be more in line with the true spirit of Christmas than buying each other cheap gifts from the mall?

Reflections After Ten Years of Sobriety

3 November 2010

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Once upon a time…

…I was over at a friend’s house getting stoned, having a good time.  After a few hours I decided to head back to my place, get some food and pass out.  Some friends joined me for the walk home but none of us thought our fun was about to come to an end.

When we got to my apartment, I realized I’d lost my keys and had no way of getting in.  I wasn’t really in the state of mind for problem solving at that moment.  I stood there confused, not knowing what I was going to do.  Should I try breaking in?  After standing there for a couple of minutes, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.  Maybe it was my mom and she could let us in!  Then I heard the sound of a police radio and before I knew what was happening I was standing face to face with a cop asking me my name.  I told him, really not sure why it mattered.  “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

I was under arrest.

While he was handcuffing me, I looked at my friends pleading for them to do something.  There was nothing they could do to help me.  The cop put me in his car and drove me to the police station where I was fingerprinted, had my mug shot taken, stripped down for a shower and changed into an orange jumpsuit.  Only a few minutes earlier I was having a great time with my friends, joking with each other, listening to good music.  And now, here I was, a criminal, still completely stoned, faced with a week in jail for contempt of court for failure to pay a ticket.

I had a phone call to make.  I called my mother, in the middle of the night, to tell her that I’d been arrested and needed her help.  She said she’d do what she could but didn’t make any promises.

My jail cell wasn’t a room at the Bellagio.  My accommodations included a steel cot with a thin sleeping pad, a blanket that was too small and a flat pillow that I couldn’t fold enough times to render useful.  Flourescent lights illuminated the room throughout the night, so trying to sleep was almost impossible.  I was cold, alone and afraid.  I didn’t belong here.  I had just turned 18 years old a few days ago and I just wanted to have fun.  I wanted to go to concerts, hangout with friends and spend time with my girlfriend.

It was in this moment that I realized that my life was going down the wrong path and that if I didn’t change, I’d fuck up my entire future.  This is where I’d end up; behind bars, in a concrete room, having to shit in front of the other inmates.

The next morning a guard came to tell me that I’d made bail.  My mom came through for me, but not before a long night in jail thinking about everything that I’d done wrong in my life.  I promised to change.

Making the change wasn’t easy.  I tried to quit drinking and doing drugs but it didn’t take long before I fell back into it.  I didn’t know any other life.  It’s what all my friends were doing.  I had a choice to make.  Either I kept hanging out with my friends and party my ass off or I quit everything and leave my friends behind.  It wasn’t an easy decision to make but I knew I had to leave my friends behind.  Even though I cared about them, I knew they were holding me down and keeping me from becoming the person I wanted to be.  I had to do this for myself.

It’s been ten years since reality provided me with a swift kick in the nuts and I’m proud to say that I haven’t touched so much as a drop of alcohol or any drug since making the decision to get clean.  It hasn’t always been easy but I try to remember that I’m doing this for a reason.  That reason is me, so I can have a great life.  A life that is full of opportunity and excitement.

Sometimes I’ll look at photos of my friends online and see how much fun they’re having at parties and a part of me gets jealous.  That used to me, smiling and laughing with a beer in my hand.  I remember how great it was to just cut loose, forget about the problems and act silly.  I loved it!

But you know what I love even more?  Sobriety.

I have a great life, a life that many of my old friends would be jealous of.  I’m following my dreams and making a life for myself.  I’m furthering my education (only a year to go before I have a degree in Environmental Science with a minor in Chemistry), I’ve traveled around the world, I have a great girlfriend…what more could I ask for?  No drug or drink can ever give me the satisfaction in my life that I have right now…and that makes the occasional struggle worth the effort.

Change is possible.