Men live lives of quiet desperation

The words I heard rang true in my heart which is why I was so moved and disturbed by them. “Men live lives of quiet desperation.” That’s what he said, and I was one of those men. The words stung as they burned and burrowed into my subconscious. What was I doing with my life? Why should I keep doing what I’m doing if I hate it so much? What was the point of it all, really?

I’m sure that Joe Rogan didn’t invent the statement. He was merely repeating the words of someone else, but that’s not the point. The words resonated with me and at that time in my life they were true for me. I was living a life of quiet desperation. Get up, go to work, do a job you hate, go home, take care of my family, rinse, and repeat.

It was the drive to be a success that made me do it. The problem I had was that I didn’t have a definition of what success was for me. Instead, my definition kept moving farther out and I moved with it. For some ridiculous reason I believed that as soon as I got over the next hump, the next pay-raise, or rather the next promotion I would allow myself to be happy. And then, only then, I could concede success. Over twenty years I sent myself on what seemed to be an endless mission of reaching the next goal. Because, success was just over the horizon, or so I thought.

When I was twenty my brain couldn’t comprehend how someone with a good job, a nice car, and decent vacations could hate their lives. At forty years old I didn’t have to bother comprehending misery. I lived it daily. I pushed and pushed and made myself damn miserable in the process. Then finally, it happened.

I failed at work in a huge way, it was totally self-inflicted, absolutely my own darn fault. However, it finally woke me up and made me fully aware of my predicament. You could call the next phase of my life a breakdown of sorts. It wasn’t a stereotypical breakdown like a movie scene where I put on a wife-beater and picked up a cleaver to chase the neighbor’s dog. Although I did consider it, just to cause a scene. Instead, my breakdown was a long slow burn that made me question everything I was doing, and it probably mortally saved me from myself.

The next step took several years. I had no idea if I would figure out what would work or if anything at all would work for me. I was on a personal mission to find something I could do that felt meaningful. Unfortunately, dropping everything, going on a sabbatical, or living on the beach wasn’t in the cards. I have a family to provide for and a strong personal sense of responsibility, as many grown men do. Instead, I kept flirting with various activities until I found the one that worked for me.

My solution was writing fantasy novels. Getting started wasn’t easy. In fact, it was darn difficult. At first, the quality of my work was very low, but I kept going because it felt right. I experienced unbelievable personal emotional growth during the first year of writing, and the quality of my work improved exponentially. I wasn’t just building my first book, but I was also rebuilding myself. I don’t know if I will ever be a successful author or not, but that’s not the point. Writing pulled me out of my own personal desperation because a tangible creative endeavor is what matters to me. If others like my books, then I can rejoice in the happiness I spread. If I never sell another copy, I’ll keep writing books because they bring me personal enjoyment that I find satisfying and meaningful.

I know for darn sure I’m not alone. Many men live what feels like a perpetual, never-ending cycle of desperation, but there is always cause for hope. Things don’t have to stay the way they are forever. Keep your chin up, keep searching, keep starting something new until you find your own endeavor that lights you up enough to get up early or stay up late working on it. Most of all, save yourself.

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