do your thing boy, don't stop

19 Feb, 2024

I was recently watching an episode of Mr. and Mrs. Smith with my Love Interest, and we were discussing whether we thought Donald Glover was attractive.

We pretty quickly agreed that, yes, Donald Glover is attractive. It was mostly implied that we were talking about attractiveness of the physical variety, but I also commented that a contributing factor to why I found him physically attractive was because he has an attractive personality.

He seems like the kind of person who’s just gonna do what he wants to do. He's gonna say what he wants to say. He's gonna make what he wants to make. He's gonna live how he wants to live.

I admire that confidence.

I’m at a bit of a cross roads at the moment. The Big Life Decision kind.

There’s a line from the Childish Gambino album Royalty that’s stuck with me:

That reminds me, I sent a long text message to my mom and pop

I got the same speech when I left 30 Rock

My mom like "Why you wanna leave a good job?"

My dad like "Do your thing, boy, don't stop"

This is my core conflict right now.

This particular Big Life Decision doesn’t involve a job, but the vibes of these options feel parallel to what I’m feeling.

On one hand, I could keep doing what I’m doing. I have a great thing going on, and honestly, after some recent, particularly large, emotional and energy investments, it’s been getting even better!

But on the other hand. The past few years I’ve been on a journey of being intentional about trying to figure out who I am and what I want from my life. The road has been full of twists and turns. I often felt like the road disappeared completely and I’d be lost forever. But in the past few months, it feels like I finally might be getting some real clarity into these big questions.

I'm feeling flashes of confidence that I haven't consistently felt for almost a decade.

I fear that a reader, including Future Sam, will take that above section the wrong way.

Re-reading it now, it seems obvious that I should “do your thing, boy, don’t stop”. But that’s always the easy advice to give. As a Giver Of Advice, you don’t take any risk. It’s easy to say follow your heart. It’s hard to know in which direction that heart actually, truly, yearns.

This “why you wanna leave a good job” direction is also pulling at my heart, and pulling hard. I’m terrified of looking back at this point and realizing I’ve never had it as good as I had it Back Then. Oh boy. I can feel my brain getting close to that hamster wheel. The worst thing I can do right now is get stuck. I have a history of overthinking until I’m drowning in despair and suffocating from paralysis.

So maybe this isn’t actually a choice between something good-but-familiar and something exciting-but-terrifying.

I think I just gotta find a way to do my thing, regardless of which path I take.

Sincerely,
Sam,
Repeat Listener of Mixtapes