Sometimes you’re happy

Sometimes you cry

Half of me is ocean,

Half of me is sky

Tom Petty, Walls (Circus)

Some days I wake up feeling like the ocean. A consistent, reliable color. When you look to the bottom of the ocean it’s always calm. It’s always consistent.

The ocean is the part of me that you know. The me that’s here for the world to see. The “successful” guy, whatever that means. The confident writer. The good son. The best friend. The person the world wants me to show up as most of the time. Just up until the point they don’t—mostly when it’s convenient for them, not for me.

Other days, I wake up feeling like the sky. A constant evolution in color. There’s nothing really consistent about the sky. Yes, it’s different depending on location. A sunny LA might mean a gloomy San Francisco, but tomorrow, in that same location, the sky is likely to change. Actually, it’s likely to change at moment's notice. That doesn’t happen to the ocean. The sky is tumultuous, evolving, and something that you can never quite peg. As many would suggest, not even the weatherman.

The sky is the part of me that you don’t know. The me that only some of you have met. The man riddled with faults. The party animal. The wanderer. The jealous guy. The person the “real world” doesn’t want anything to do with. The person the real world looks at with one eye open, not sure whether to take me seriously or roll out the red carpet. 

Here I am telling you both people are me. In fact, all my identities are me. The guy at the table with my parents. The guy at the nightclub with my friends. The guy at work. The guy writing this intro to a someday-book. The guy who’s written three previous books, all on different topics. Can you see a trend? The guy who wants you to know there are countless me’s, some of which you’ll meet in this someday-book, but all of which helped me write it. I want this book to remind you that you can be two things at once. It’s normal to be different people in different situations. It’s a survival mechanism that’s been wired into us from homo sapiens’ earliest beginnings. We want to fit in, we want to look good to our people, and we want to feel loved.

What does this all mean? And why am I telling you this?

We’ve taken the authenticity thing a little too far. “Be the same person everywhere you go,” you’ll hear people say. “Be authentic.” 

Nonsense. This was something contrived by people who “made it” with some “ocean” personality, then amplified the importance of “being yourself.” 

I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but all the people who “made it” have multiple people they are, too. It’s part of being human. Go read a biography or memoir of any person you admire, and you’ll quickly realize the multidimensionality of their being. You’ll see the image the world wants them to show up as. You’ll see the dark side that comes through in their art. You’ll see the mother or father in them. The stubborn entrepreneur. I don’t know, go read, you’ll find out. Sometimes those personalities are flattering, and other times they aren’t. Perhaps this is the genesis of the age-old expression, “Never meet your heroes.”

So here, I’m going to just say it—the only people scared to show you these alternate sides are those protecting some kind of interest. The legacy. The company. The brand. Scared shitless to show you who they really are. Whether they have good or bad intentions, they have to hide part of themselves in order to deliver their message in a consistent way to their audience. I get it. I do it, too. But to believe this multidimensionality doesn’t exist with all humans, even your idols, places all the weight on your imperfect life. This seems a damning lie to tell yourself for the rest of your life. Imperfection is life. For me, for you, and for your idols.

Consider my childhood hero, Derek Jeter: the consummate professional. The winner. The all-around good guy. The press left him alone, he had a pass with the media, and maybe he deserved it. But not even Jeter could stymie the murmurs of the underworld. We get small whiffs and undertones of his other side, like the stories of him sending women home in limos with souvenirs after a night out. Are they true? Maybe or maybe not. I don’t care, nor am I going to pretend to know Jeter. I love him as much as any man could love someone he doesn’t know. But Jeter has many other Jeters: Jeter with his teammates, Jeter the owner, Jeter with the media, Jeter with the ladies, and now Jeter the husband.

So rather than shout from the mountaintop, “Be authentic,” maybe we should question if that even makes sense. Are we asking something of people that is logically impossible? Authentic for what? Who? When? Where? You see what I mean.

So rather than “be authentic,” be this instead.

You’re not always going to make the right decision or dodge temptation, but you can always be kind. No matter who you show up as or what you’re doing, you can try to treat people well. The golden rule to “treat others as you want to be treated” didn’t become the golden rule for no reason. This means “being authentic” can’t exonerate you for being an asshole. Nor can you rely on the bullshit line, “I’m just being me.”

If you want to hurt yourself, fine, have at it, but don’t hurt others. Just realize that by hurting yourself, in many instances, you very well might be hurting others. A painful lesson I’ve endured and learned. Somewhere right now, someone is reading this cringing. Maybe a doctor, mom, or teacher. I don’t know, but he or she is screaming, I can’t believe he just wrote that. I agree, it does sound terrible, but it’s more real. It’s more doable. Of course, this is not to be perceived as medical advice. This is the mere opinion of someone that knows he is half ocean and half sky. I’ve hurt myself many times throughout life, made mistakes, failed countless times, said the wrong words, and done the bad thing. I will again many more times, but I always seem to pick myself up by the bootstraps and move forward. Physically and mentally. This is part of what it means to be human.

Quite selfishly, I always want people to feel good around me. I want them to remember that I made them feel better when they were with me, not worse. Call me virtuous, but as you’ll read in this someday-book, not everything I’ve done reeks of virtue. Quite the contrary, actually. This is why treating other people well is so important to me. I know there’s more to you, good and bad, and I opt out of adding anymore manure to that heaping pile that’s steaming somewhere in your mind.

This someday-book is a composition of stories from my life that link together to make up one whole me. Some are odd, some are frightening, and some are heartwarming. I’m not perfect, never will be. I’ll do things that will make you shake your head up and down and side to side. If you’re trying to make sense of it, you’re asking the wrong question. Nothing makes sense.

I am not you, you are not me, and that’s okay. Let’s just laugh together and not be assholes about it.