“Does life ever feel too luxurious for you?”
A long-time friend of mine texted me those words tonight. It’s not hard to see why. After all, I’ve basically been assaulting the social media feeds of my friends with what seems like the most luxurious life a quote-unquote normal person could lead.
A weekend behind the wheel of a supercar with one of my best friends in the world. A first-class flight to Miami, where a waterfront suite awaited. Custom sunglasses sent to me as a congratulations for driving that supercar to the top of the podium. I won’t lie—sometimes I sit back and wonder how in the world I got to where I am today.
There are people who’ve never flown first class in their entire lives. Hell, there are people who’ve never flown. When I drove the NSX over the weekend, I was reminded that it’s the third mid-engine supercar I’ve driven on track this year alone. That’s just silly. When I don’t get upgraded at my boutique hotel of the week, I get disappointed—and then I remember that, to most people, a regular old Marriott is a really nice hotel.
But it all comes at a cost. Every minute I’m sitting in first class, drinking a cocktail in a rooftop bar in Manhattan, or sliding sideways through a sweeper is a second that I’m not with my two young children. I was barely able to adjust my schedule to make sure that I didn’t miss my daughter’s first day of kindergarten—if I hadn’t been there for that, I might have lost my mind. Every time that I drive to the airport, my kids ask me, “How long will you be gone this time, Didi?”
It would be bad enough if all I did was travel for my day job. Tack on a few press events here and there, and a couple of weekends playing music, and I’m easily away from home more nights per year than not.
I never forget how fortunate I am to have the opportunities I have. But I never forget what I’m missing, either. I’ll never forget the people from this past weekend who were excited to just be able to touch a supercar—and I get to drive them as fast as I possibly can on tracks all over the world. But I’ll never forget that I had to miss coaching my son’s soccer practice in order to do it. I’ll never forget that I got to use my frequent flier miles and hotel points to take my kids to Disney World for what amounted to free, but I’ll also never forget that I had to miss countless everyday activities to be able to do it.
It’s a tough life to balance. In order to take that Disney trip, I had to turn down the chance to drive yet another supercar. At Spa. For free. I briefly considered moving my kids’ Disney trip to take the gig—and an hour later, I felt ashamed. How dare I delay the excitement and joy my kids get from seeing Donald Duck and Elsa just so I could go play amateur racer?
Over the past several years, I’ve managed to establish myself as somebody who can be valuable to an organization as a consultant and to a press organization as a writer, but at a cost. So when you see me doing something ridiculous, like driving a supercar around the country, and you say, “Man, how do I get to do what you do,” don’t be surprised when I ask, “How do I get to do what you do?”