A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned by Michael J. Fox Read Free Book Online Page B

might do, then trusts you to draw your own conclusions and act accordingly. If you succeed, they’ll take one step back, and if you screw up, they’ll take one step closer. Whatever it is they teach you…pass it on.

Victims of Pomp and Circumstance
“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
    J OHN W OODEN
    HERE YOU ARE, YOU’VE PULLED IT OFF…AFTER years of jumping through hoops, meeting, sometimes surpassing, expectations, you’ve made it. You’ve broken through to the light, even though it often seemed there was only night at the end of the tunnel. Congratulations on your achievement.
    Going forward, if you put in the work, you’ll reap the reward, just like in school. You will probably find useful and marketable applications for the skills you’ve developed. Many of the friends you’ve made over the last few years will stay with you, and along with your family and the new friends you meet along the way, they will form a network of support and contacts that will open new doors and keep you safe behind old ones. You’ll be emboldened to challenge yourself and to embark on unexpected journeys. Maybe you’ll fall in love or remain committed to a school sweetheart. There might be kids, a dog, a yard—if that model fits your ideal. Perhaps you have a less conventional lifestyle in mind, custom designed by and for you. Life is good, and there’s no reason to think it won’t be—right up until the moment when everything explodes into a fireball of tiny, unrecognizable fragments, or it all goes skidding sideways, through the guardrail, over the embankment, and down the mountain. This will happen (and probably more than once).
    What I’ve just described may be shocking coming from me, given my reputation as an optimist. Although I like the identification, it’s not exactly the way I would characterize my outlook. I think I am a realist. The reality is that things change; the question is, how will I perceive that change, and am I willing to change along with it?
    It may seem hard to believe, but it’s catastrophe that offers the most promise for an even richer life. This is the gateway to the good stuff. In other words, you never truly know which way the wind is blowing until the shit hits the fan. And further, if you don’t mind getting a little dirty, that breeze will carry you a long way.
    I’m assuming that you have, up to this point, accepted my premise that we all pass through an education of sorts. Mine, although perhaps not as structured as yours, was composed of the same fundamental lessons, leading to a point of readiness to take steps without so much guidance from other parties, save select mentors. In other words, I’ve learned enough to be safely unleashed on society. In surviving those first few years in Hollywood and the first few years of my initial success, I passed through a crucible of sorts and forged a life that many would view as exemplary of the American Dream.
    On the career front, I had captured lightning in a bottle more than once. On television with Family Ties and in film with Back to the Future , as well as with other projects, I had arrived at a place far beyond the simple working actor status that I sought when I left Canada for Los Angeles as a teenager. I met a girl too smart and too beautiful for me by a long shot, and I somehow persuaded Tracy to marry me. We soon had a healthy son. We lived in luxurious homes, drove foreign cars, and traveled to faraway, exotic places. In short, life just couldn’t get any better. But it would, though only after it got much worse.
    In 1990, when Sam was six months old, my father died unexpectedly. Suddenly a father to a son, but no longer a son to a father, I finally began to understand the value of my dad’s experience and advice only when it was lost to me. Later, after a number of body blows left me sucking for air, I would realize that my dad continues to be a guiding force years after his passing. It’s ironic,