I've been a musician, a lawyer a government business relations consultant. With a parallel life in media: A syndicated legal columnist and op-ed contributor as well as an opinion columnist for the Report on Business in Toronto's Globe & Mail; Creator of the You! be the Judge legal column, written by Elissa Bernstein and syndicated in Canada and the U.S.; Executive producer of the You! be the Judge radio show and podcast and You! be the Judge videos created under Fred Montpetit - gifted photographer and director.
Now a street photographer (alias streetwalker!) and blogger. (and in the process of hatching up new projects!)
Each of my five "careers" morphed into the other. And each was built on the same elements:
An idea out of the blue;
A child's basic understanding of law: "Ma, it aint fair";
A compulsion to realize something I knew nothing about; and...
Terror!
The sheer terror when you cross the line into something you've never done before.
To paraphrase Ed Catmul, head of Disney-Pixar, in his book Creativity Inc.:
'It's like pummeling at 90 miles an hour in a dark tunnel, holding on for dear life,
and praying there is light at the end of the tunnel."
Unlocking the secrets of unknown territory and then building a new happening is.....addictive! .
The thrill of reaching the top of the mountain you've just reached lasts only a moment and you're already looking for the next hit. Before you're down the mountain, you're into your mind searching for new secrets to unlock.
The mountain, the idea, the dream, is basically anything that makes you tingle with excitement. Things you've always wanted to do, things you've always dreamed of creating but never allowed yourself to even think of doing: taking tango lessons, paragliding, climbing Mount Everest, taking up the cello, changing jobs, quitting jobs, going back to school.
It doesn't matter the idea. It doesn't matter the passion. The only thing that counts is daring to defy your fear and crossing the line separating your safe world from the unknown. Daring to live your passion.
And it is never too late. Like the lady of 105 years old, in a group of women suffering from terminal cancer,
The therapist was introducing a dance. The lady of 105 had never danced in her life. Her religion forbade dancing. But for the first time in her life, something snapped. She allowed herself to cross the line.
The moment experienced by the 105 year old was as fulfilling, as thrilling, as the experience of crossing the line of a 10 year old, a 20 year old, a 60 year old. It is a moment of sheer joy. Of sheer exhilaration.
It is a moment that feeds us for a lifetime.
