OyChicago blog

Around the beginning of spring every year, or as Chicagoans call it, “three quarters of the way through winter,” lots of us are having fun-filled family functions where searching is the primary activity. Some search for matzo. Some search for eggs. I search for egg matzos. It gives it some extra panache. 

That’s right my ever faithful, incredibly attractive and – did you lose some weight? – Oy! readers, it is Passover time at last, one of my favorite holidays of the year. Number 3 in fact.

One thing I’ve always liked about the holiday is the search for the Afikoman. Or in English: the search for dessert. I suppose, in that case, every meal for me ends with the search for the Afikoman. But I digress. Or should I say, digest? No. No I shouldn’t. But as I’ve grown older, my search for the Afikoman has no longer been in the traditional sense, but rather in the much grander sense that is life. Big metaphor, I know. What I mean to say is, the way I view the search for the Afikoman equates to the pursuit for what it is that I can be doing every day to be as happy as possible. And yes, hopefully there’s money at the end of that pursuit.

In the past few years, I’ve grown a little older, a little wiser and a lot more mature. (I’m almost 27! That’s a chai and a half!) Through that time, I’ve taken a few good long looks at myself in the mirror and really tried to figure out, what is that growth on my shoulder? Once I cleared up that mystery (shirt fuzzy) I discovered that I measure success differently than I used to. That’s probably because outside of having lots and lots of money, I wasn’t exactly sure how I measured success. I know it may sound terribly cliché, but I feel success is doing what I love every day. If I am truly lucky, then maybe, some day, I’d even get paid to do what I love.

Based on this criterion of success, I can say that I’ve had it, just not as often and as consistently as I’d like. I very much like my day job, but there is a lot I would rather doevery single day than go to my day job. However, my success criterion has the unfortunate blockade of adulthood. Adulthood is why I used the word blockade. As I often like to state, I am an adult. At least I’ve been trying to convince myself as much for some time now. (Thosesome times can be found here and here for your convenience.) There are many adult shenanigans that contribute and also anti-contribute to my overall ability for success.

My recent discovery – my personal Afikoman – is a relatively new find, yet it has always been there. At heart, I am a performer, or as I like to put it – a humorist of sorts. Always have been, always will be. In college, I was even doing standup comedy for a bit and for a less of a bit I was even getting paid $25 bucks a week and free beer. Greatest hourly wage I’ve ever had. However, it does qualify me to say I was a professional standup comedian for while. Heh heh. So I’m working toward the being happy doing what I want to be doing on a daily basis thing. The problem is that day in and day out, I’m not doing exactly what I want to be doing on a daily basis.

The real thing I want to do is to make the funny voices and sounds that got me in trouble in 7th grade (and still sometimes today). See, I consider myself a voiceover enthusiast, and that’s my ideal Afikoman: using my voice to make a living. My neighbors have to be frightened that it sounds like more than 100 people live in my apartment. And they are all VERY loud.

With all that in mind, I keep considering the possibility of pursuing voice acting, which I have actually been doing subconsciously for quite some time. And if I pursued it every day, that’d be me pursuing my Afikoman. Some days I pursue it, some days I don’t. Perhaps during this Passover, once again being in the presence of the annual search for the Afikoman, my urge for the daily pursuit of my own Afikoman will take full flight. The main thing I need to overcome is that I’m lazy, but more so that I’m frightened to go after my dreams and fail, to pursue my Afikoman and not find it. But is it really better to try and fail then to never try at all?

Yes. Yes it is. Future Adam will be disappointed if I don’t ever actually try and I know I can’t let future Adam down because he has a lot more stuff than I do right now and that makes him really cool. So grab some egg matzo, warm up that voice and let’s find us an Afikoman. Allons-y!