Maybe It’s Time For You To Own It

 
Why did the Magnum P.I. mustache fall out of fashion? Even Tom Selleck shaved his off for awhile. He’s since grown it back. And I think that’s just a big middle finger to the whole TV industry.

Tom Selleck does what he wants with his facial hair. Deal with it.

I respect that. The dude has chest hair, too. He never shaved that off. He’ll go for a swim and climb up out of the pool with the chest hair and the mustache and all.

The young actors don’t have that kind of confidence. They’re all shaved and waxed and sanitized. Is this because the modern woman is into that?

Women in the 80’s knew what was up. That’s because Tom Selleck told them.

Tom didn’t have any Facebook or texting. He had to actually step up and let women know that he was interested in dating them. And he did that with a naughty grin and the class of a gentleman.

Cruising a red Ferrari and solving crimes in his Hawaiian shirt, he was rugged and cool. So much so that Spielberg originally cast him as Indiana Jones, but it didn’t happen because of Selleck’s contractual obligation to CBS.

It’s true. You can watch Tom’s Raiders of the Lost Ark screen test on YouTube, and also an interview where he tells the story to David Letterman.

He’s working again on TV, playing a cop on a Friday night show. Friday night, by the way, is now the purgatory of television. It’s where they put all of the half-assed programming.

It didn’t used to be that way. We had Knight Rider and The Dukes of Hazzard. That’s quality television.

A talking car, David Hasselhoff way before the burger on the floor incident, good-hearted rednecks, and Daisy Duke. Dig that!

Obligatory Daisy Duke Pic

These were hour-long adventures where good and bad were clearly defined and stories were neatly wrapped with a moral and a lesson about life.

Now Friday night TV sucks. It’s geared toward older people who fall asleep on the couch before the show is over anyway, so who cares what they put on?

Tom deserves to be treated better by the television industry. We all do.

But here’s the deal: Tom owns Friday nights now. He owns them on yet another cop show.

Now, I don’t know Tom personally, but I can’t imagine his long term professional goal was to be on a Friday night cop show. I think he’d probably rather do something new, more creative, more edgy.

And I think a lot of people feel this way about their lives. So many of us are stuck in our own equivalent of the Friday night cop show.

We feel bored or perhaps the life we’re leading feels like the consolation prize.

We feel typecast. Like we’re doing the same stuff over and over, like we’ve been through this before but life just keeps happening.

We aren’t doing bad. But we don’t have the job or lifestyle that we want. We aren’t dating the person we want. Other people in our lives aren’t behaving the way we want.

What’s the answer?

Be the best at being you.

Own it like Tom Selleck.

I started writing again about two and a half years ago while going through one of the toughest times in my life. There were things happening that I couldn’t change, so I decided to write about them rather than ruminate on their inflexibility.

That turned out to be the best possible thing I could’ve done. Not only was the writing therapeutic and entertaining for me, but it brought new people into my life who encouraged me and helped me, including Joshua Fields Millburn. And I can’t recommend his writing class highly enough.

I’ve gotten emails from people around the world telling me how my writing has meant something to them.

And those emails mean so much to me. Thank you, to everyone who sends them.

So, not to make everything about me, (because the doctors say everything’s not always about me) but I am learning to make the most of the less than ideal parts of life.

And you can too.

You don’t have to start writing, but you can be the best at being you.

Whatever that means.

Be the friendliest bartender, the kindest nurse, the hippest teacher, or a super hero attorney. Be a rock star stay at home parent.

Or dig up a long forgotten hobby or passion.

Paint your masterpiece on Instagram. Take weird iPhone pics and tweet them. Compose little tunes and unleash them on the world via YouTube.

I bet people’ll take notice.

And I bet you’ll take over your little corner of the world like Tom Selleck took over Fridays. I bet you’ll create a niche for yourself and interesting times will come looking for you like the ratings came looking for Tom.

And you can do whatever you want with your facial hair.