“As children we assume that greatness is within our grasp. Whatever inspires us, we begin to dream that one day we will be the best. It is only as we lose our childlike innocence that we begin to settle for far less. A part of growing up seems to be acquiescing to mediocrity. It’s easy to say that we’re just becoming realistic, that it’s just a part of growing up. But, in fact, it’s the death of our souls. When we stop dreaming, we start dying. For some of us, this has been a slow, painful death.” – Erwin McManus “Soul Cravings”

When I was a little kid, I looked forward to the day when I would get to play baseball in high school and college, maybe even play pro-ball one day. My parents tell stories of me rounding the bases in our front yard pumping my fist a la Kirk Gibson celebrating my own game winning home run. When I was in middle school it was computer programming. I was just discovering all the cool things you could do with computers. I even wrote a program in BASIC which you could pretend to have a conversation with. Then in high school and college it was hanging on every word of Josh Lyman and Kate Harper on the West Wing, knowing for sure one day I would get to be “the guy the President turns to when he doesn’t know what to do.”

But then I realized I just wasn’t fast around the bases. In fact, I was slow on a level approaching epic. While I’m a big guy, I’ve never really had a power swing either, I’ve been more of a high average singles and doubles hitter. That dream limped on for a while longer through church softball and pickup games but I’ve pretty much resigned to living vicariously through my fantasy team today.

And then I realized that I really don’t enjoy math, and computer programing requires a lot of math classes. They aren’t the algebra variety either. Maybe if I had a really great math teacher who got me excited about integers and tangents I’d have turned out a little different but I decided I’d rather let other people do the programming while I just tinker around with the hardware.

Finally came the realization in college that I’m not aggressive enough for politics.  Sure I want to be in the situation room as world changing decisions are made, but I don’t want to do the ass kissing and hatchet work it takes to get there. I want to spend my life focused on making the world a better place, not focusing on the next election or congressional vote. If I moved to DC the city would swallow me up in a second. There is so much more to life than polling numbers. If some day I was given the right opportunity to become involved in a campaign or political office, I’d probably jump at the chance. But to move up from the ground level just isn’t who I am. I don’t want it enough.

I look back on my (relatively short) life sometimes and kick myself for decisions I made that basically changed the course of my future in just a few seconds. I remember being invited by the baseball coach to try out for the high school team.  I told him I’d be no good and walked away. I think about the homework assignments I didn’t put full effort into or the classes I skipped to watch a movie with a friend and wonder if I couldn’t have graduated from SPU with honors. I think about stupid things I’ve said to girls I liked that ensured a friendship at the cost of a relationship. I even wonder sometimes if the seizures I had in high school didn’t change the wiring in my brain somehow, closing off neural pathways or altering my personality.

If you had asked me even five years ago what I would be doing today it wouldn’t have been working in Christian camping. This is not so say that I feel God brought me to Santa Cruz for no reason (in fact, my brief 1 1/2+ year down here has changed me for the better in ways I never would have though). But I was supposed to be working at a web 2.0 company or the State Department or in grad school writing a masterful thesis. I’m not supposed to be a confused, frustrated, cynical 20-something. My interest in history gives me this ominous shadow of time hanging over my shoulder. People may be living longer, but I feel sometimes like I’m wasting important years of my life. To go back to the quote above, I see greatness slipping away with the passing of time and it leaves me feeling a little more panicked with each passing day. Panicked that I missed God’s calling to whatever I’m really supposed to be doing, missed that class or that conversation, or job fair interview where I was going to get my “dream job.” Terrified that I’m going to wake up and realize I’m 35 and working a job I have absolutely no passion for, just doing it because I’m still waiting for God to show me what’s “next.”

So what is next then. Well, my current passion and dream job is photojournalism. I’ve still got a lot to learn, and it is a very competitive field, but I look at my work at Vintage and compare it to “professional” work and I’m not half bad (in fact, if I might boast a little, I’m pretty good). Traveling to Uganda and documenting the trip was an amazing experience. While it has put a pretty big dent in my youthful finances, it was worth every penny for the photos and stories I was able to bring back. One of these days I will finish the book I’m working on to self publish with photos from the trip. Then next fall I’m going to sit down with a friend and put together a professional portfolio of work to market myself. Looking at photos that tell a story is so inspiring to me that I want to go shoot more myself.

“Your soul longs to become, and you can try to ignore it, but soon you will find yourself hating your life and despising everyone who refuses to give up on his or her dreams.” -McManus

I don’t know what the future holds, I don’t have a crystal ball or hot line to Heaven, but for a little while longer at least I’m going to keep dreaming.

Filed under: life, photography by Jonathan Assink