Life Lessons from a Sportswriter (Hint; they are no different from that of a non-sportswriter)

I ran into an old friend from high school recently and he told me he heard through the grapevine about my successes and saw how "great everything was going for me" thanks to social media. I of course thanked him and he offered to buy me a cup of coffee.

Perfect timing too, I had an article to write and the friendship I had grown with coffee lately would put him on my MySpace Top 8.

So we sat down and I tried not to be a total dick and order the biggest/"foofiest" coffee known to man, but the conversation was good. He then asked me a question that sounded familiar and the amount of times I had answered it you would think I had a script written down.

He asked me "this may be a weird question, but how did you do it?" In order to not make things weird I said "uhhhh my job correct?" He chuckled and said yes.

He brought up a story about me during my senior year of high school about a project I was presenting, it was on steroids in baseball (duh) and he said he remembered how passionate I was talking about Rafael Palmeiro and I made a joke about deflated balls before Tom Brady made it famous (duh times two) and I was instantly reminded that this had been about the fifth time in the last couple days people have asked me: "how did you do it?" They each expected an answer of: "education, interning, there's no I in team speech, etc." but I just answered truthfully and said: "it's pretty simple, I just did it---I suppose Rafael Palmeiro helped."

Mind you, my journey has been anything but simple, so when people say "wow you truly have it together" I laugh. If they only knew how much of a struggle it was and has been. But I can promise you it's been worth it. Every late night, early morning article I have written. Working for free. Every "I can't go out tonight, I'm in the zone with this article." Every eye roll I would give when I would be told my dream wasn't going to be easy to achieve.

However I'm not here to tell you what you have to do in order to achieve your dream (and I told him that) whether it's in your career, in love, in finances, in family, or any aspect of your life. Because honestly I do not have that answer; the best thing I can say is whatever you are passionate about, do that. You will come across distractions in the process [mainly in the form of people and a lot of people are more curious than they are trustworthy so be careful] do NOT get distracted, however if you do, which is inevitable --- you'll learn something from it.

I adjusted my coffee so the brand name was facing towards me. I'm OCD all of a sudden I suppose and I thought to myself how strangely [expletive] up life is, how unfair it can be, and how beautiful it is.

I tried to tell him some fortune cookie, Pinterest quote, but that didn't happen. He would be able to see right through it.

He understood where I was coming from, and respected my answer --- or lack there of. We said our goodbyes after exchanging "remember that one time..." stories [and then I remembered I did some stupid crap back in the day] and he hugged me so tight I remember my feet didn't touch the ground for a moment. He made a cute comment about how I "don't look like a boy anymore," but he was glad to see me so happy.

Naturally, being a writer I had to get my thoughts down.

This is the part where I say I don't mean to social media vent --- but I'm about to social media vent: and I thought "Hm --- this is annoying --- I question this --- I contradict that ---." And for what? I answered my own question: for no [expletive] reason. I could point fingers, I could beat myself up, I could ask "why" a trillion times, but it would just frustrate me even more.

But here are some free life lessons from my observations: 

• absolutely everyone in your life is going through something 
• loyalties can & will be broken by the people who promised you they would never hurt you
•  you will be constantly pushed, tested and let down
• makeup tutorials on YouTube are BS (whoever can perfect top eyeliner is full of it)
• you can only depend on yourself
• if you have people in your life who don't adore the difficult tendencies or habits you have or love you for everything you are --- get rid of them 
• I have no effing idea what Billy Beane is doing, so stop asking
• you can have it all --- and not feel guilty about it
• quality is better than quantity: you should have four quarters and not 100 pennies
• people will try their hardest to make you as miserable as they are; don't let them 
• and all things considered --- you have a pretty [expletive] awesome life.

I don't have all the answers you guys, nobody does. Sometimes none of your questions get answered, but there is always something to be thankful for; and those are the things you should work hard at making last. Do that, and I can promise you will amaze yourself, and that's something you will never need an answer to.