In 2014 after a personal family tragedy, I found myself homeless in Boulder, Colorado. I slept on friends' couches, with people I dated, or in my 2000 model S10 pickup truck. It was bad. I turned inside. For the next year I barely had enough money to do anything. I picked up odd jobs. I had worked at National Public Radio, The US Department of State, was an internationally award winning playwright, but couldn't bring myself to do anything to improve my life. I had many ideas, but all of them felt pointless.
At the worst point, in the early winter of 2015, I had a 103 degree fever, couldn't get out of bed, and got a phone call from some old friends in Los Angeles. They had climbed to the top of Runyon park and Facetimed me. After the call I thought to myself "This is it, this is where I have to decide, I'm either going to choose to die here, or get out of this."
Something snapped in my brain, and the next day, as soon as I woke up, I took out all my ideas and started running with them. It didn't matter how ridiculous, I tried it.
18 months later I had paid off all my debt, had appeared in two plays, one TV show and one movie, self produced a stand-up comedy special, and was promoted to manager of the team I was working in.
The lesson was clear: Don't put things off, don't back away from life, keep doing, keep going. "It's better to do the thing than not do the thing."