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The conventional path was always my destiny. I may have entered the wilderness 4 years ago, but that was never the plan. Having two accountants for parents may do that to you.

Choose the defined career. Pick something safe. Don’t be a starving artist.

I initially struggled to get started down the conventional path. My LSAT scores were not extraordinary and my ~3.6 undergraduate GPA from a state school was only slightly above average.

Nevertheless, I was accepted into a solid law school in 2010, graduated in 2013, and worked my butt off to build a career that made me and my parents proud. As I discussed in this essay, I worked on Wall Street trading floors throughout the middle and latter parts of the 2010s.

I was promoted multiple times. I got married to a beautiful and brilliant girl I met in law school. Life was easy and good.

It was safe.

But when the pandemic hit and my son arrived in 2021, I quit my job to look after him full time. It gave me the chance to ease off the career gas pedal and open my eyes to the rest of the world. The stillness of slow walks around Manhattan, pushing my son’s stroller while nearly everyone worked inside offices, made me realize life could be more than swiping a corporate badge through turnstiles.

As I dug deeper, I realized how much art and culture I had missed from the 2010s. I had been so determined and focused on building myself professionally as a lawyer and personally as a husband that I hadn’t asked a simple question — is there more to this life?

I simply hadn’t made time to ask. All of my energy went to getting the best grades possible in school. Getting the best first job possible. Searching for a second job when I wasn’t satisfied with the first.

I didn’t make time to see what was going on in the worlds of art, media, the internet, and technology. When a new phone came out, I usually just got it. I didn’t ask questions. When people talked about Game of Thrones, I watched it, but I wasn’t studying the maps or memorizing characters or plot lines like some. Even by 2019, when I was well into my career and comfortable, someone recommended watching the film Parasite, and while I enjoyed it, I didn’t think too deeply.

Throughout the 2010s, I was on cultural cruise control while speeding down the career highway. I used to joke with my wife that I never saw her in work clothes. I usually left before she was out of bed and returned home by the time she had already changed.

It was only once I quit my career and had a moment with an infant in my arms that I realized that life doesn’t have to be what the previous 10 years were. Everyone has to make money and eat, but nobody is forcing us to do the same job for the rest of our lives. Yet I had been so committed to my career path that I hadn’t considered anything else.

As a result, I missed much of the 2010s. I saw the big shows like Breaking Bad. I listened to Kendrick Lamar and Drake. I knew who Banksy was and I was aware of streetwear’s increasing influence on fashion. But I never invested time to appreciate or understand any of it.

As someone who had read voraciously in college, I lost touch with literature. The big authors of the era like Sally Rooney or Colson Whitehead were just names to me.

And I never had any understanding of social media. I posted a few photos on Instagram primarily for friends, and I eventually stopped using Facebook. But I completely missed Casey Neistat, the rise of YouTube, and the evolution of short form videos as TikTok grew in late 2019.

In short, I had no sense of art. I was far removed from any cultural pulse. And I lived in an epicenter for both — New York City.

Oddly enough, this lack of cultural awareness came from someone who thought he was creative. I talked about writing a book shortly after law school. I eventually wrote that book, self-publishing it in 2022 under a pseudonym, but despite those artistic yearnings, I never focused on art or culture itself.

It’s easy for daily life to hypnotize you. To trap you in its motions. To force you to forget there are other ways of living.

Many of us are just trying to get by. Feed ourselves and our families.

But if you are even a little like me with a kernel of aspiration for something more, perhaps even something creative, I urge you to fight this hypnosis.

Consume, create, and do what gives you passion or purpose. What makes you excited to jump out of bed in the morning to seize the day. What lingers in the back of your mind as you go about your day, calling you to pursue it.

For me that’s always been writing. I can be anywhere doing anything and thinking about how some random topic would make for a great story. Then I get excited about how I would structure and write it.

Over the past few years, it’s also been video as I’ve pursued filmmaking more. This medium fits my style well because it’s similar to storytelling through writing, only visual. Many people are more willing to watch a short video than read an essay, so us writers must adapt if we want to maximize airtime for our ideas.

My writing and filmmaking, however, only started to improve once I opened my aperture to the world. I had to leave my narrow lanes of politics, law, and finance to see what else is there.

We are what we consume.

So while I may have improved my understanding of the world by reading three newspapers per day and books on geopolitics, I wasn’t seeing life for all of its beauty. My vision was limited to only a few colors on the spectrum.

Once I decided I wanted to pursue more creative goals, I had a lot of catching up to do. I wanted to post videos on YouTube, so I started studying the greats. I watched 800 Casey Neistat vlogs from that wild 2010s era of the internet that I was completely ignorant about at the time.

I bought a camera that wasn’t my phone. I studied the craft of filmmaking and even some photography. I learned what it meant to tell a great story visually.

On an annual basis I had a meeting with myself that tracked my YouTube progress. I wrote 5 lessons from my first year on YouTube and a separate piece on how I got monetized. Not for those essays to go viral, but to study and reflect on what was working for me and what wasn’t.

Now I am more invested in social media, the creator economy, and what’s going on in culture and art. I read far more widely than I ever did, from The New Yorker and edgy Substacks to books by avant-garde filmmakers like Werner Herzog.

Maybe you’re not like me and you’re content staying in your lane. Change is difficult. It can be financially disastrous, mentally torturous, and physically draining. So I don’t judge anyone who opts for consistency and certainty in life.

I have struggled at times during these wilderness years. Questioning my purpose and place in the world. But I’m also immensely grateful for the opportunity to explore my creativity and my newfound vision of a more colorful and interesting life.

I firmly believe that you have to suffer a little for great things. Sometimes you have to suffer a lot. Whether that’s exercising patience while baking sourdough, figuring out how to use video editing software for the first time, or quitting a successful career for the uncertainty of a new one.

It’s through these struggles where greatness can appear. And it starts with giving yourself permission to try. Maybe changing what or who you consume so it’s more aligned with your overall interests or purpose.

I may have missed most of the 2010s, but I’m better off for it. It’s given me a deeper appreciation for art, culture, and creativity. I value it more after seeing what I missed.

This appreciation powers my new creative self. It’s like switching from regular unleaded to premium.

Nobody determines who you are or what you consume. No algorithm, influencer, or person in real life. So if you hear the voice like I did telling me to write and make art, consider listening to it. Open your aperture and chase what inspires you.

The safe route may have the least suffering, but it may have the least fulfillment too.