I was inspired a few days ago to start the mental legwork for this post after reading an interview with Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco, in this month’s issue of The Advocate.
Mayor Newsom ordered the City of San Francisco to begin granting marriage licenses to gay couples in 2004. The marriages began on February 12, and about 4,000 couples were married by the city until the California Supreme Court stepped in 29 days later and stopped it. A case is still pending in court (with the City of San Francisco as the plaintiff) that will ultimately decide if the court will allow marriages statewide or not – that decision is due very soon.
Mayor Newsom is not gay. He followed his principles, and ironically he got a lot of criticism for it from the gay community. Why? Because nobody thought this was the right time to do something like this, and many believed for awhile that Mayor Newsom may have triggered a national backlash against gays that may have helped get Bush re-elected and get many state constitutional amendments passed to ban gay marriage. Maybe it did and maybe it didn’t, although much new research is proving that the backlash and constitutional amendment momentum had already started well before Newsom decided to start marrying gay couples in his city.
Even his inner circle of advisers at the time thought it was very bad timing, and that the Mayor was likely destroying his political career. Asked how the final decision was made to go ahead with the marriage orders, he replies,
“The ultimate assessment was: So what? We talk about principles. And if you can’t stand for what you believe in, what’s the point?”
Mayor Newsom is my hero for this. But this post is not merely about gay marriage.
What other hopes and dreams do we all have, that are kept on the back burner because we’re waiting for something else to fall into place?
I want to be in a relationship, but I’m not where I want to be with my career yet. I want to get back into shape but I’m too busy with work right now to get to the gym. I want to get married but I have to save up for money for the ceremony. I want to move somewhere else but I haven’t finished fixing up my house yet. I want to start dating again but I’m not totally over my last relationship yet. I want to…
I have only recently been able to move my life forward again when I realized a few things. That everything is possible at every moment, and it’s never the right time. Everything else is just an excuse, because greatness never follows good timing.
I’ve come to understand over the last few weeks that I’m still limiting my own life experiences out of fear of being out of control. I avoid dating anyone who doesn’t fit what I believe is my perfect match, I don’t socialize with people who don’t share all of my core values, I pass on all activities that I think I may not enjoy.
Eventually all these useless limits we place on ourselves build up, and guarantee a boring life devoid of any change or development. Mayor Newsom didn’t get his state’s Supreme Court to look at gay marriage by waiting for the right time to flaunt state law, any more than you’re going to fall in love by waiting until your life is perfect before you start dating, any more than a gay man is ever going to make new friends by waiting for a complete lack of sexual awkwardness, any more than you’re going to get a ripped body by waiting for tons of free time to manifest itself for going to the gym. It’s all bad timing, so get used to it!
I’m not proposing that you live your life with reckless and careless abandon. But my hunch is that when you are at the end of your life, you will look fondly at the times that you stepped clear out of your comfort zone and changed everything about the life that happened afterwards.
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