The Path Not Taken

You will probably not be surprised to learn that I have always been a writer. I won a bunch of writing awards in high school and in college.

After graduation, I moved to a small town in on the Olympic peninsula in Washington. It was a depressed little town, with no industry to speak of except for two failing paper mills, and the highest stray dog population in North America. There wasn’t much to do there. But there was a fine independent bookstore that had a large collection of literary journals.

I spent a fair amount of money buying those literary journals, which were full of short fiction. I purchased one issue of Granta in 1996 that had the top 20 writers under 40. There were lavish profiles, with glowing biographies and striking black-and-white photos of the writers. Many of those writers went onto become hugely successful. Jonathan Franzen, for example, but also Jeffrey Eugenides, Ethan Canin, Edwidge Danticat, Kate Braverman, and many others. I had written some short stories in college (that were pretty good!) and I decided right then and there that after leaving the Coast Guard, I would pursue an MFA in Creative Writing (maybe from Iowa!), work at some University stranded in the middle of the Plains states, where you can make up tales in your head about the people you see in the general store, and write award-winning short stories, getting them published in the top journals.

I was pretty excited about my plan. So I told my mom my plan.

She said it was a terrible idea. She was worried that her son would endure economic hardship, like any mother would. She wanted what was best for me. She said I should instead focus on making money, so I did a volte-face, applied to business school, got in, got my MBA, got a job at Lehman, and the rest is history.

I had, by anybody’s definition, a very successful career on Wall Street, especially when measured in notoriety and not money. I loved writing, but I loved finance too, and around 2004 I figured out how to marry the two. But I couldn’t help but experience regret about the path that I had chosen, particularly around the times that I was not getting paid or promoted at Lehman. I was experiencing regret about the path not taken. What would my life look like if I had become a writer and not a trader?

Impossible to know—you can’t run a controlled experiment. You can’t have a parallel universe where you’re a writer and you get to see how it plays out over time. Yes, I would have less money. But would I have more psychic benefits as a writer?  Would the pride that I would feel getting published in those journals, would the pride of seeing my book in the bookstore make it all worthwhile, even though I had fewer material comforts?  We all know that money makes you happy, but we also know that other things make you happy, too. All I knew was that I was getting daisy cutters dropped on my head on an hourly basis at Lehman and my anxiety was through the roof. Anything seemed better.

Anyway, I left Wall Street, started a newsletter, wrote a couple of books anyway, wrote a bunch of op-eds, and I was happier than a puppy with two peters. But one issue was left unresolved—I never got an MFA.

So one summer day, my wife and I decided to go camping in Wilmington, North Carolina. Never go camping in North Carolina in the summer. Boy, was it hot. So we set up the tents, and cooked over the campfire, and after we cleaned up, I went to get in the tent, and I’m like, no freaking way can I sleep in this tent. Jesus Christ. It is a sweat lodge. I’m one of these fat guys who needs the thermostat set at 68 in the summer or I’m miserable. So I said, fuck this, and I got up and sat by the campfire in the darkness.

And I sat there all night. After a couple of hours, the fire burned out. And I sat there some more. And I thought about shit. And I thought some more.

And I got the idea that I might go back to school and get my MFA. After all, things had changed since 1996, and I could get it online.

I sat up in that chair all night and thought about it. Didn’t sleep at all.

When the sun came up the next morning, I decided: I would do it. I would go back and get my MFA. So as soon as I got back to the house, I dropped off the tent and and all the crap at the front door and went up to my laptop and started researching schools. Within about a half hour, I found the one that I would apply to.

The application process was surprisingly thorough. I had to get both my transcripts—my 4.0 from grad school and my embarrassing one from undergrad. I had to get letters of recommendation, and I got two brilliant ones from my editor at Bloomberg and my literary agent. I had to submit a portfolio of work, I had to do all that shit. Just like I was a kid in high school, but at age 46. When I had the entire package put together, I hit send—and waited.

The longer I waited, the more worried I became, and the more convinced I was that my application would be denied. In fact, I was positive of it. Keep in mind, this is coming from a guy that has published two books, is a well-known opinion columnist, has a following of hundreds of thousands of people, and even had a nationally syndicated radio show. I thought it wasn’t good enough. This was my dream, to get my MFA, and I was convinced that I would crash and burn.

Then one afternoon, about a month later, a message came across my gmail from the school. I opened it.

Hello Jared,

I would like to congratulate you on your acceptance to the M.F.A. writing program!  Your official acceptance packet will be mailed to you shortly. In the meantime, I've attached a digital acceptance brochure for your consideration. 

As soon as I saw it, I started weeping uncontrollably. My whole body was shaking. I had waited 25 years for this. It was finally happening. I cried for two solid hours. I had not allowed myself to acknowledge how much this meant to me. I was finally taking the path not taken.

Everyone has a path not taken. Everyone has something they wish they had done, some athletic or artistic pursuit, that they put aside in favor of a more practical profession. And for the vast majority of people, they never take that path. Not in their 40s, not in their 50s, or 60, or 70s, and they end up on their deathbed, filled with regret. They regret not doing the thing that they loved, the thing they always wanted to do. I like to live my life in such a way that I won’t have those regrets. I started my electronic music career at age 34, when most people do it at age 14. After I’m done with my MFA, I’m going to take up painting, and sell my art to raise money for mental health charitable causes. If there’s something I want to do, I do it—I don’t wait for anyone else’s validation.

What is stopping you?

What is stopping you?

Go fuck yourself,

Jared

No music recommendation this week. Instead, come see me DJ in Dallas!

March 5th, 10pm, 4735 Memphis St. Come on out!  I’m opening, so you can come early. It will be epic.

P.S. We’re Gonna Get Those Bastards will always be free. Feel free to forward to as many people as you like.