Five years, already?

Looked up and realized that in July 2004, I started this blog.  Five years ago???In between, I’ve said too much and not enough on it, along with neglecting it once I finally got real, full-time jobs.  That says a lot about what this blog did for me, if nothing else — somewhere to write when not enough people were paying me to do so.
It’s kinda wild to go back through the archives, though.  The tone now is sooo much different.  Forget that I’m a bit more reserved and private now than I was then.  It’s wild to go back and sense the optimism in the words, something that’s certainly not as palpable now.
It’s not that I’m doom and gloom now.  It’s more that the things I wanted and dreamed of then, many of them I’ve pulled off.  I’ve had columns.  I’ve been on television.  I had the job that I never, ever thought I’d have.
And when I got em, the only thing that really changed was how much money I was or was not making.
It’s not even that the new penny shine is off all of this.  I love the work I do now, and I think I’m more knowledgeable and sophisticated than I ever was, and I can communicate more clearly and powerful than I could dream of when I was 23 and you couldn’t tell me a damn thing.  Being better, no matter what anyone says, is more fun.
But after getting fired and thinking there was no upward mobility after that job — and finding out how stupid I was to think that — I figured out where I had it wrong before.
Dream job?  No such thing.
Dream work?  That’s the goal.
I’ve got a sample chapter from a book proposal that I’m incredibly proud of, even though I’ve yet to submit it.  I’m working six days a week now, and the 18 hours I spend on the air are the most fun I have.  I’ve got an archive page I can still go back to and find stuff from years ago that still make sense (and read better than they did then).  I’ve made friends with people I’ve looked up to, and I’ve found out some folks I looked up to really ain’t much of nobody once you meet them.
But the craziest part — right now, I’m getting congratulations on “making it” based on a television special I sat for SIX YEARS AGO.
Since then, I’ve gone to grad school, left grad school, bought a house with money from a column that was torpedoed after less than a year, scraped by freelancing for a year, “made it,” “lost it,” taught at one of the top universities in America, learned how much a mere two unemployed months can stay with you, and then “made it” again doing something I did a long time ago.
Moral of the story?  Makin’ it ain’t shit.  By that measure, I’d “made it” on a 24 hour trip before I had to get to math boot camp for a Ph.D program that I didn’t finish.  Makin’ it?  I’ve learned there’s no such thing.
The only “it” there is to make is the work I do.  Whether that be the piece I write, the segment we produce, or the class I teach, all that stands are their impacts.  The pieces are measured by what they do for the folks that read them.  The analogue is the same for what I do on radio.  The work teaching is best measured by students that invite you to meet their parents and keep asking you for advice.
The work is all most of you will ever remember.  More than that, it’s the one thing I can control.
Not coincidentally, my most trusted mentor, Ralph Wiley, said that very thing in the last thing he wrote before he passed away (the same summer I started this blog).   That’s one of those things you think makes sense when you hear it young.  Then the game kicks your ass a couple of times and you realize what it means.  In a world where one man’s opinion can derail everything you’ve planned or dreamed of, you realize quickly that all you can do is the best you can, and all you can do is trust that it’s made a contribution.  If you don’t think it has, time to work on it again.
Job’s are fleeting.  What you do with them is permanent.
So what’s the biggest thing this blog has taught me?  Exactly what I wanted to say and what I wanted that work to be.  Greatest gift it could have given me.  Spent five years talking about a little of everything on this site.  Now?  Doing that for a living in pretty much the same terms and with the same comfort and confidence.  I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
And if you didn’t know it before, this blog is here entirely because of the good heart and assistance of George Kelly, whom I don’t tell nearly enough how much I owe him for what he’s done for me since 2004.  Thank you again, George.
(Hell, my whole career is the byproduct of other people’s kindness — notably a gentleman named Cory Brown, whom I don’t say “thank you” to nearly enough — but the man that started the blog gets the blog shoutout.)
And thank you for reading.  A lot of you have watched me grow up and, in return, allowed me to become your friends.  That’s big stuff, when you think about it, and I can’t say how touching I’ve found that.
To the next five years…whatever they may be.