You wanna know my story? Go watch Dead Poets' Society. The protagonist, Neil Perry? My story is told by his story - except the part where he kills himself, of course, because I'm still here, and I don't plan to take that exit. Also, he wanted to act, and his father insisted that he study law. I wanted to travel, write, be a rock star, whatever. My father insisted that I study accounting. But for these minor details, he lived my life on film. The lines his father used on him could have been culled word for word from my own life.
Nothing wrong. My father was just doing what he thought was right for me and although we had our differences of opinion, we settled our differences as much as we could before he died.
Long before that, though, I was studying and doing my articles in Durban when one day I couldn't take it anymore and I went to this psychologist, who asked me some questions that helped me to make up my mind to leave before I popped myself off. When my old man asked me what I would do, I told him I would write a book. It was soon after this that Dead Poets' Society was released, and I took on wholeheartedly the notion presented in the movie that we should, in the words of Walt Whitman, 'live deliberately', and 'suck the marrow out of life'.
Over the next 15 years I traveled the world and enjoyed success as a journalist. I become editor of a couple of men's magazines, one of which was the South African edition of FHM, which became one of the top-selling magazines in the country. I got married to one of the world's most beautiful women and together we lived the high life in Johannesburg. Our son, Luke, was born in 1999.
I didn't write the book. Well, I wrote it - I wrote a few in fact - but I haven't published one - yet. And don't give me the full analysis, I just haven't and one day I will, although I've found blogging to be much more fun, so maybe I'll just do that instead.
I left my cushy magazine job to write and to start my own business, but after I didn't write anything that I felt was worthwhile, and after my business ideas didn't work out, I started beating myself up - I gave myself huge mental stick. I didn't know it at the time, but I became depressed.
I only discovered I'd been depressed after I'd decided to become a life coach and attended a coaching course, which woke me up to how life could really be. It took me a while to get back to my true form, to my full sense of self - in fact it wasn't getting back, I discovered myself for the first time, and my life started to flow again.
Today I wake up feeling positive, excited for the day ahead. I have more energy and mental clarity, more purpose, than I've ever had before. I'm no longer married, although my ex-wife and I are still friends and are fully engaged as parents to Luke. It was through coaching that we recognized our differences and realized that the most loving thing we could do would be to set each other free.
Aside from my coaching, I recently started working as the managing director of an e-commerce company. I'm loving this as it brings together all my interests and talents. Leadership and management, like coaching, is all about getting people to do things that they never thought they could do. I'm also developing an online coaching portal where men can connect and support each other as they go through the journey of discovering their true selves - especially that particularly rough phase that happens around midlife.
My experience has shown me that the midlife transition is an undeniable phase and that we should gear our lives to use it for self-discovery and not get stuck because of decisions made when we were too young to know better. It has also shown me that there is such a thing as a true inner voice, a true Self, and that that true Self has a purpose, a desire so pure, so singular, so clear. If you listen carefully you will hear it, and no matter what you do it will never go away! So if you know right now that you're not living that purpose, then ask yourself, how important is this life to you? Because if you value this life, if your life is important to you, then do what's important to you.
