2013.05.08 - The Shoulds

Today was just an incredibly full and wonderful day. I took the week off work to have some personal time and boy it's really paid off in spades.

I got up at 5:30am and went surfing in Malibu with Rich. The waves were waist to shoulder high as the larger sets rolled in and I scored a couple of rides that brought me instant joy and laughter. Then off to breakfast with my dear friend Denise. We talked about some of the powerful lessons that both life and death have been revealing to us recently which I found very spiritually connecting. Later, I had lunch with my childhood friend Debbie whose father died when she was fifteen. We laughed as we always do, caught up and I shared my experiences of watching Dad die over the past month. After that, I went to a a big 'ole Hollywood blockbuster in 3D IMAX with my friend Keith and my lovely wife. Just something fun to add to an already lovely day.

But I remember a moment that I had this morning as I drove up PCH. I suddenly felt guilty about the fun I was about to have in the ocean. And I thought: shouldn't I be mourning more? Shouldn't I be more sad and crying and upset for having just lost my father? Or shouldn't I be in synagogue saying prayers for him? The next moment, I got my answer: absolutely NOT.

Because I realized that the greatest way I can honor a man who loved to do what he did is to enjoy every minute of every day for as long as I have days left to enjoy. But my life hasn't looked that way if I'm truly honest. That's because for over 40 years, I've been navigating the world by charting a course based, in large part, on obligations or "The Shoulds" that other people told me: you should go to an ivy league school, you should choose a career more stable than acting; you should be a writer or a rabbi; you should come home to visit more often; you should marry a Jewish woman, and so forth. It's important to note that these were all other people's ideas for me that I tried adopted as my own because I didn't feel that I had alternatives.

One of the biggest lessons I'm taking from Dad's life and death is that we need to let go of doing things out of obligation and instead focus on doing things that we love doing. All of us. It sounds so simple as to be child-like, but there it is. Feel like you should stay in a relationship that you feel is bad for you? Walk away from it. Feel like you should stay at a job you despise because you think you have no choices? Then remember that you always have choices and options.

And when I start to imagine a world where I get up and do what I love every day, it gives me such excitement and hope that I can't contain myself. And when I start to imagine a world where everyone is doing that as well, it makes me think there's nothing we can't achieve.