Robert De Niro

It was an ad in a magazine.

An ad in a magazine I was flicking through whilst sitting in a waiting room.

The picture was of a New York streetscape – Broadway, I think.

In the bottom left corner was a very stylish Robert de Niro and another guy I didn’t recognise. Maybe that was the point?

The advert’s tagline was: Defining Moments.

I got it.

Right away.

And I don’t always get the subtleties. It’s quite beautiful really. I spent a moment with this picture, the magazine held appreciatively in my hands.

I understood the significance of Robert de Niro on a New York City street at night.

And once I got over being pleased with myself for getting the second currency of this tagline I, as I often do, turned inward with this statement.

Do I ever define the moment or am I defined by the moment?

For a long time in my life I was waiting on my Fairy Godmother to show up and make happen all the dreams I kept locked in my heart.

When I fantasised about playing Left-Half for Tottenham, running the point for the Atlanta Hawks or landing a foreign correspondent assignment for the BBC or Time magazine it was always because of Deus Ex Machina. A kindly benefactor would emerge from the ether. Someone who’s seen something in me – something I haven’t even seen in myself – and takes me under their wing, opens a door or two, puts me on a path to the type of awareness and realisation as a person I would never have been able to uncover under my own steam.

Like Pip from Great Expectations, I would be plucked from my little life and thrust into the sinews of the beating pulse of the world.

I was always a passive player. Always doe-eyed and naïve.

I was always being defined.

I was too willing to be acted up. I saw myself as an instrument. I was a guitar. I had the potential to make amazing sounds and electrify others. The hitch in how I lived my lived was I needed someone to plug me in to an amp and strum my strings.

For too long I lived with this vague and lurking belief that things would work out for me because someone would help me and make it happen for me.

I let my teens, my university days and most of my early to mid-twenties go by in this way

I know different now.

I know I must be the architect, the engineer and the labourer.

Nothing worthy or worthwhile happens in my life without me working hard towards it. Sure chance, luck and fortune play their part. They play their part because I’ve done all I can to put myself in a position to earn the opportunity and be ready for it.

In some ways it’s easier now, at this point in my life. Whether it’s as a manager, or husband or a father, with the roles I play comes mostly clear responsibilities and accountabilities.

In regards to an issue facing a team member at work, I know what I need to do in any given situation and how to escalate or what it will take to resolve.

At home, it’s about doing what the husband or the father would do – the type of husband and father I want to be: present and available.

When it comes to me, it can take time to work out exactly what’s achievable in terms of helping myself.

At the beginning of 2018 I set myself the challenge to meet more strangers and fail more. Essentially, to be pushing myself out of my comfort zone of often as I can.

It’s not always easy and old habits, like being a shrinking violet, die hard.

Though from moment to moment, in small doses, I understand how I can define what’s happening around me, for others and myself.

I get at times what it must be like to be Robert de Niro and be an architect of your our ecosystem.

PS. The advert with de Niro was for a brand of watches. I don’t remember what the brand was. Sorry. Not sorry.

PPS. I do realise I’ve undone this by posting the photo above 🙂

(image courtesy of zegna.com)