Who I am...

Arthur Miller died last night. If you're not familiar, he's the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright who penned Death of a Salesman.

Strange, the timing of his death. At almost the moment he died, last night while driving home, I was having a fit of self-doubt. The kind Miller's character Willy Loman experienced in the play.

Death of a Salesman embodies what most men go through at a time in their lives. That moment of self-awareness, that instant when a man looks back at his years and realizes that the book of his life he intended to write turned out differently. (I say most men because I'm sure some never go through it. I have... I am... and so I am not one of the lucky ones)

My regrets are not huge ones... I never went to college, and wish I had. I allowed people to walk on me a time or two, and wish I hadn't. I made some disastrous financial decisions early in life. I didn't get to know myself very well until recently, which could have spared me some personal expense...

The book of my life, or the one I intended, isn't exactly following the path I had hoped. My story was to be that of a big-time radio guy. A popular personality who always knew the right thing to say at the right time. He made his listeners' lives richer, and was respected in his industry. He was important and in demand. He never stumbled or faltered... and as he aged, he kept his edge. When he retired, people would still call him and ask his advice - and toward the end, he would write a book about his successes in radio and the people and places he'd seen.

You know, I'm not sure exactly where that story began to falter. I suppose somewhere toward the beginning, the part about being big-time. I reached a certain level of success in radio, but nothing near what I had dreamed. There were lots of restarts, retries and resets. When I lost my most recent job in 2000, I decided maybe my book had been miswritten.

So I reluctantly moved into a related business. It wasn't what I had envisioned for my life... it's a business rife with changing trends, and at any moment I could be yesterday's "flavor of the day." I hope that my flexibility and willingness to modify will prevent that from happening, but in those moments of self-doubt... well, you know.



The bottom line is, I am not the man I thought I would be.



But you know, those moments can be helpful if you let them. In a somewhat epiphanous way I have been reminded that what I DO... is not really who I AM. How I father... how I husband, how I handle friendships, is who I am. Conducting life day-to-day in a way that satisfies me and makes me proud... that's who I am.

And you know what? I guess I do pretty good at what I do. As voice over guys go, I get plenty of respect. I have a place in the business and a dog in the hunt. My clients like what I give them and I enjoy giving it. I'm growing faster than I ever hoped. Sometimes I wonder if I deserve what I have, but mostly I think I do.


Am I the person I dreamed I would be? Not exactly.


But I like Anita Sharpe's quote - "Accepting your destiny sometimes means abandoning your dream."