There's a part in the film Swingers where Ron Livingston's character, Rob, tries to cheer up his friend Mikey, played by Jon Favreau. Mikey sits in his apartment with the blinds drawn and has quite literally not not the seen the light of day for quite some time.
When Rob all but forces himself up to Mikey's place to check on his friend we find him unshaven with his hair disheveled and distraught over the break-up of his girlfriend back in New York 6 months earlier.
"That's your problem," Rob says. "You don't look at the things you have. You only look at the stuff you don't have. Look out the window. It's sunny every day here. It's like manifest destiny. Don't tell me we didn't make it. We made it! We are here. And everything that is past is prologue to this."
How often have you failed to see how you've already made it? The truth is, if you're pursuing something you love and getting fulfillment out of your work you are living a profoundly rare and fortunate existence.
It took me years to to discover the real superstars in my own life were friends with full-time jobs who still found time to sing, write, act, or play. I marveled at how they’d babysit, teach, or wait tables just so they could pursue something they loved. They taught me to recognize the accomplishments I had overlooked but more importantly to take a little inventory of all that I already had.
They were my "Rob's." They made me realize I was already living the dream.
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