May #3
Plan B was a really lucrative career with guaranteed income and a decent pension plan(!)
When I realised that wasn’t the easy route to my first million that I thought it would be, I went and bagged myself a history degree, which I did precisely nothing with.
I worked a few hospitality jobs until my ma’ told me about an opening at the Pear Tree, and I went for it even though I’d have to commute ninety minutes to get there.
So, there you have it.
My dreams were precisely that. Dreams. And how often do dreams come true?
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brIAN
Brian: I’ve been thinking about your dreams.
Jesy: Oh, right.
Jesy: Just one question.
Jesy: Why?
Brian: I’ll answer that in a minute.
Brian: What did you want to write about when you were younger?
Jesy: Nothing particularly exciting, actually. We had this assignment at school to write a short story about a historical person. We were allowed to embellish, but it had to be as accurate as possible based on what history taught us about them.
Jesy: Coincidentally, we were covering some local history in another class at the time.
So, I cherry picked one of those figures and wrote a story.
I tried to write it like one of those dramatic reenactments on historical documentaries.
A narrator’s voice, a flashback to the person doing something. Back to the narrator.
Jesy: It was fucking shite.
Jesy: This isn’t one of those moments when a dream was realised, and I found the inspiration to create beautiful, romanticised stories. However, I did get a solid grade, and my history teacher got wind, he praised my research and accuracy.
Jesy: And that was the moment I knew what I wanted to do.
Jesy: Because I actually loved the research part. And I agonised over making my story as historically accurate as possible.
Brian: You wanted to write a history book.
Jesy: Bingo. The problem was the history I enjoyed was local. Talk to me about Henry the Eighth, and I snooze. William Wallace gets a pass, obviously. But generally speaking, nah. It’s a very niche interest because most of the world hasn’t heard of us.
Brian: So?
Brian: You asked me why I was thinking about your dreams.
Jesy: Yes. Because we last spoke about them five days ago.
Brian: Sure.
Brian: But we also spoke about how aimless you feel. And I’ve been there. Before I started the business, I was working a dead-end job that slowly sucked every ounce of happiness from me, until I was struggling to get out of bed.
Brian: And I mean, I struggled.
Brian: It didn’t matter that I had rent to pay, or that I enjoyed eating three meals a day.
Every time my alarm went off, I didn’t even have the energy to feel dread at another day.
I was just empty. Going through the motions, avoiding eye-contact and connecting with people.
The food I was working so hard to pay for, went untouched until it became a pile of mould in my fridge.
The flat I was slaving away for to keep a roof over my head, went neglected, covered in dust and grime.
Jesy: Shit, Brian.
Brian: I know. It wasn’t my finest moment.
Brian: And, to be fair, it wasn’t just my job. It was the isolation I felt.
Brian: All of my peers seemed to be handling the daily grind, so why couldn’t I?
I felt like a failure, so I avoided talking to them.
My parents… so supportive and understanding my entire life, suddenly felt like judge, jury and executor.
My dad got a job right out of school and has stuck with that same company, climbing the ranks.
How could I go to him and explain how much this simple office job was killing my spirit?
Brian: I had a girlfriend at the time.
Brian: Holly worked at the same place I did.
But she didn’t hate it like I did. She woke every day with a smile and a can-do attitude.
She killed it every single time, and I was in awe of her.
But I couldn’t tell her I was struggling.
I couldn’t tell her the job she loved was the worst thing in my life.
Brian: She stopped coming over when the flat went to shit, not that I can blame her. And when I kept blowing her off, she stopped calling altogether.
Jesy: Sounds like it was a really difficult time of your life. I’m so sorry, Brian. So, what happened? How did you get out of such a vicious loop?
Brian: My dad.
Brian: I shouldn’t have doubted him.
Brian: Obviously this wasn’t an overnight thing. My parents had been watching me decline steadily over the months. And then I stopped mentioning Holly. And my best mate, Darrell, wasn’t coming for Sunday roasts anymore.
Brian: I don’t know why, on this particular day, my dad decided to visit. All I know is he let himself into the flat, saw the mess I had created and decided he couldn’t bear to see his son like that.
Brian: He found me in bed, staring at the ceiling, three minutes before my alarm was due to go off. He roused me from whatever trance I was in, looked me square in the eyes. ‘Well, son. I think it’s time to admit you need help, and who better than your old man to give you it.’
Jesy: Dads are good at that.
Brian: They are.
Brian: I don’t know if he expected it. But he opened the floodgates. He held me in his arms like I was the young lad he comforted after a scraped knee and not the grown ass man having an existential crisis.
Brian: Everything came spilling out. The feeling of hopelessness, the thought of wasting my life in that cubicle, staring at the same grey wall. Feeling like I was alone and being left behind.
Brian: He listened and held me, and finally when the tears ran dry, he said the only thing he could.
Brian: “I guess it’s time to find you something you love.”
Brian: Obviously, I protested.
Jesy: Naturally.
Brian: Well, it wasn’t that simple, was it? I had bills to pay. Bills, bills, bills. And he told me I was making excuses.
Brian: Honestly, I felt like he’d slapped me in the face.
Brian: I was doing what was expected of me. Out in the world, making my own way. Manning up and getting on with it.
Brian: He told me that there would be no ‘getting on with it’ if I drove myself to an early death trying to do what everyone else was doing. That there’d be no bills to worry about if I let this disease take hold of me.
Jesy: Shit. One hell of a motivation.
Brian: Yup.
Brian: I got up. Showered. Dad took me for breakfast. He asked me what I wanted to do and what I needed to make that happen.
Brian: Long story short, my parents loaned me the money to set up what would become SideQuest Studios, and slowly, with a lot of therapy and a support system of people I couldn’t be without, I found my zest for life again.
Jesy: God.
Jesy: That’s one hell of a story.
Brian: I’d say it was an extremely common one, actually. Only, I was one of the lucky ones. I had someone intervene and set me back on my feet.
Jesy: It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Brian: No. It does.
Brian: Jesy, I don’t want to make presumptions about your life. I can only speak on what you’ve told me and relate them to my own experiences.
Brian: Maybe you won’t spiral the way I did. But humans need goals. They need reasons to get up out of bed and face the day.
Brian: You should write the book.
Brian: And maybe you won’t do anything with it. Maybe it will just be a passion project that you keep on your shelf, never to see the light of day.
Brian: But it will give you purpose right now until the right thing falls into your life.
Brian: I have a feeling this is exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, though. I have a feeling you’ll make those millions after all.