The Trouble with Dreams

Recently, I have been buying a lot of books but for whatever reason I can’t seem to actually read them. I used to be an avid reader, before Tivo and the internet came along and stole my soul. In high school I wanted to be the “well-read” guy, because being an average douche just wasn’t good enough for me, I wanted to be the ultimate douche. You know, the guy who quotes authors and poets and revels in a giant well of douchiness that only impresses other douches. I finally came to a place where two roads diverged in a wood, and -I, I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference - Robert Frost. I guess you can take the boy out of the douche, but you can’t, well you get the idea.

So last night I decided that I am going to spend 30 minutes a day with my face in a book to try and get my mind away from the computer and TV and back to the written word. I’m sure this will last as long as my diet, but a boy can dream can’t he? Or can he?

Randy Pausch came to my attention last spring when I watched his “Last Lecture” on YouTube. After he passed away I picked up his book, and that is what I started reading last night.

The big theme of the lecture is achieving your childhood dreams, so I started to think about mine, but I could only come up with two; playing professional soccer and working as a Latino motorcycle officer for the California Highway Patrol (C.H.i.P.’s). I didn’t have the size and speed to be a professional soccer player and I wasn’t a big enough dick to be a cop, so those dreams met an early demise. Today, I play soccer in my living room with an Elmo ball and the only handcuffs I use are to keep Moo locked in the basement while I drink and play Wii.

Pausch had five or six dreams, and in one way or another he achieved his goals, he was a doer, a go-getter, an over-achiever. I am a slacker, the kid who always got the note on his report card “Erik would excel if he would just apply himself”. There in lies the rub, I’m not very good at applying myself, because I have very little passion for anything. Is that bad? I guess at some point I should throw together my bucket list of things to do before I die, but the things that used to seem cool, now just seem like a big hassle, ie…traveling in Europe, sky-diving, two chicks at the same time. Ok, maybe that last one is still worth the effort.

I hope that everyone has a good turkey day, and maybe Bruce and I will get hammered and double team a Butterball, so that I have a good post for you next week. Now there’s a dream I’m pretty sure Randy never achieved.

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