My Lament: I Wasted My Time, Until Time Wasted Me

Let me tell you about 22 year old Samuel. He was full of life and energy, but his biggest flaw was always thinking tomorrow was a better time than today to follow his dreams. He had a small nagging anxiety that kept him from leaping, because he always meticulously calculated how hard the landing would be if he missed the mark. He never took the chance, simply out of fear for an illusion of failure. Failure was never assured, but he feared it was, and never made things happen. He could have done so many things, he could have seen so many things, the places he could have gone and the things he could have become. Now, at 42, heavier anxieties have stripped Samuel of any energy he had left. He's watched all his dreams wash away with the tides of change. He's watched everything he's held onto so tightly slip free and bolt. Believe me, when he was 22, he would look at a 42 year old lamenting his past just like he is now, and scoff. Fucking loser pissed away his whole life, but I won't! Not me! I'll be somebody! I'll do something! Time ticks faster than he ever realized, and before he knew it, it's caught him in a web of inability. Don't fucking do it, heed my warning! DON'T FUCKING DO IT!

I started playing guitar around 1996, and I immediately wanted to learn how to maintain my own guitars, as repair work was specialized and expensive back then. I learned the basics, but that led me to want to build my own guitars, and by 2005 I was seriously looking into Roberto-Venn luthiery school. I researched everything, and I nearly signed up, but that nagging anxiety showed me a world of wasted time, wasted money, and complete inability to do anything with the skills I would have acquired. In the end, comfortable stasis was better than the discomfort of challenging the mental illusion of failure. I regret it to this day.

Around the same time, 2005, I was looking into BYOC pedal kits, but I lacked soldering skills back then. While I did eventually start building guitar pedals, in 2020, I often wonder what might have been. Would I have started by modifying DS-1s, like Josh Scott, and made a name for myself? Could I have become like Brian Wampler, who was essentially my neighbor back then. What would have happened if I had crossed paths with Sean Michael of Lovepedal when I lived in Michigan? He too was practically my neighbor when I lived up there. What might have been? We'll never know. Again, at least I finally started building clone circuits, and my only legacy will be DIY pedals that end up in Goodwills or, most likely landfills.

One would think if that's all I've got to complain about the rest of my life must be pretty good, right? Nah. I wasted so many years holding onto the wrong relationship, it's not even funny. I've never been a "player", I've always tried to make it work, although I am not without flaws. I am human, I make mistakes, I repent and I learn. Looking back at all of my relationships, of which there were three long-term, I used to feel if I learned from them what not to do in any future relationship it wasn't wasted time, but nah, it mostly turned out to be just that. Did I have fun in each relationship? Yeah! Did I make memories that still make me laugh and smile randomly to this day? Yeah! But you know what? I saw the signs, I just didn't want to believe them, let go, adjust and do better. Again, the same nagging anxiety calculating how hard the landing would be after the fall kept me clinging on, long after I should have let go. Now I'm still sifting through the ashes of the past trying to find anything left of me to redeem and give to someone new.

Listen, I know this was boring. I know this wasn't what you wanted to read today, but here we are. I'm just trying to reach out to anyone and tell them time is fleeting, time is ticking away, don't waste your time. I'm not saying schedule every single solitary second of your life, unless that's how you already get by, but I am saying if you have a goal, strangle that fucker and make it happen! Snatch every single goal away from the hands of time pulling it away from your capability. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but make it happen! What might have been isn't a good look during a midlife crisis my friend. It's really not. It doesn't matter how lofty your goals are, build toward them. Use that preparation to push you forward. Let the fear of NOT attaining your goal choke the shit out of the illusion of failure. Failure may happen, but it's not guaranteed. Be kind to yourself, and others! I love you all!