Walking down Park Avenue one balmy spring day, I realized that I was miserable.

Worse, I realized that this feeling of misery had been there for a long time. Three, maybe four years. I just hadn’t been able to put a name to it until that moment.

Previously, I thought it might be quite a few things: boredom, annoyance, anger, ambition, perhaps even that Millennial obsession with novelty. Each of those false diagnoses was swiftly met with a solution: eat this, drink that, party here, ditch there, work harder, act softer, buy now, live yesterday, ignore tomorrow.

These solutions delivered their requisite dose of euphoria that seemed to make the problem disappear, but, like the credit cards I had been fond of maxing, I had only pushed the day of reckoning back back back until….

….that very moment.

In that moment, a cavalcade of emotions flooded my body:

First up, Anger.

More precisely, it was anger at Young American playbook for not delivering on its promises.

I’d gone to a good university, lived in London and New York City, worked my way up the PR agency ladder to a respectable position, netted a great salary, lived in a trendy neighborhood, kept a low body fat percentage, ate/drank/listened to/visited all of those things that warranted a torrent of fire emojis. I did everything our parents, culture and society deemed desirable…so where was the dreamy state of satisfaction that was supposed to come with it?

Disappointment, c’mon down!

For all of the external, possibly superficial plaudits I just listed, there was also a stark, unglamorous reality.

In spite of the handsome pay packet, I often found myself living check-to-check, with the occasional end-of-pay-period day or two of being broke.

I typically did just enough work at the office to convince my bosses that I was smart enough to be kept around, which freed me for hour-long forays of Internet wandering.

I had a swath of friends in the city I could schedule coffees or drinks or dinners with, but very few people I that I felt comfortable sharing my shortcomings, sorrows and moments of brokenness with.

I had a long list of goals and hopes and dreams, but every year they seemed to still be there.

I didn’t lie, cheat and steal, but I certainly hid, boasted and pretended like it was all going to be fine.

Oh Jesus Not You, Desperation!

By desperation, I mean the scramble to ameliorate that pain IMMEDIATELY. My go-to remedy of choice through the years had been romantic love. I was (and still am, kinda sorta) a serial monogamist. My dating life was a merry-go-round of serious relationships, beginning with a young marriage that didn’t work out. The relationships would go like this¹:

1) The thrill of courtship, which provided more than enough novelty and adrenaline to numb all wounds;

2) The subtle realization that I sacrificed too much of my actual self in the courtship, whether it be putting up a macho front that would inevitably crumble when my sensitivities creeped up or just spending too much money doing fun shit to win the girl;

3) Burying this realization and subsequent feelings even deeper through a potent combination of a carefully contrived, “logical” inner dialogue (“C’mon Daniel – it’s perfectly normal to let go of your needs in a relationship. Good relationships are built on sacrifice. A lot of it.”) and alcohol.

4) Reaching that threshold where the amount of alcohol needed to hide feelings would conversely let the darkest, most animalistic (think brain stem activity) self loose. I’d get drunk, I’d get angry and, frankly, I’d get verbally abusive. Cut to the next morning, where I’m explaining the episode away. I was pretty talented at interpersonal diplomacy – but there are only so many times one can pull the Kissing Kissinger card out before the end is inevitable.

I was in a relationship at the time of the realization and it was the best one I’d been in to date. Vulnerable, truthful and inspiring. In fact, as I would later learn, this woman had planted the seeds for the belief that I could live a life constructed on my own needs, boundaries and values.

But, in that moment, I knew that a relationship couldn’t fix this. The littered remains of broken relationships told me such.

Emptiness.

All of the things that I had unconsciously hoped would save me from a slow demise – success, family, love – could not save me. In that moment, it had all felt pointless. Hopeless. Futureless.

Wittled down to the lowest common denominators of human existence, there were two choices for me: death or life.

Death seemed like a pretty rash resolution to this conundrum, but it also had been one that I was no stranger to. I had never seriously contemplated suicide, but there had been occasional quiet Saturdays at office where I would stare at the rafters, wondering what it would be like to hang myself. There were also the moments of staring at the 6 Train tracks, wondering whether an end at the hands of a barreling car would be swift.

Thankfully, I was (and still am) too much of a chicken shit to go through with it. Fear of physical pain. And, of course, not wanting to put my family through grief.

And to close out the show, the solemn, sobering Acceptance.

So, maybe a few seconds² after getting punched straight in the face by anger, I accepted the fact that my only choice was to live. More importantly, I realized that the only thing/being/energy that was capable of saving myself was…me.

Somehow, someway, I was going to have to find the strength, tools, energy, desire, will and purpose to create a life worth living. To find out who the fuck I actually was (and am) and live by those values.

And with that, I opened the door on a journey that has reshaped my entire existence. Believe me, it isn’t easy. For every moment of discovery and elation, it feels like there is 100 moments of error, anxiety and deep uncertainty. But hot damn, finding each piece of puzzle that is your magical human self is one of the most exhilarating feelings you can go through.

There is no roadmap on how to do this. Everyone has their own path. What I’m doing here is sharing my path, as it unfolds. It was from the paths of others that I borrowed from, experimented with and made my own. This blog is my way of honoring those heroes, doing my part to continue the cycle and, admittedly, finally looking fear dead in the eye and writing like I always said I was going to.

It’s a nerve-wracking, liberating, anxiety-inducing, joyous, tear-filled, scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs ride. But it is the most important ride any of us will ever take. And it all starts with one of the lowest points of your life: the painful realization.

Listen to the pain. In that moment, you have a valuable opportunity to set yourself free.

– – –

¹Wait, is this a list within a list? How Inception!

²Yup, the maelstrom of emotion left almost as fast as it came. It tends to be that swift if you’re only outcome is life or death. It’s very akin to the ending of the British cult classic The Long Good Friday, in which the protagonist’s face chronicles dismay, then anger, then solemn acceptance of his impending death without uttering a single word. Still probably one of the best endings to a film: