I like to think that our lives aren’t all that dictated and planned, but spontaneous and chaotic, in the most beautiful of ways. This part of the interview provides me with an example. Ahmed and Owen share how they both got the chance of a lifetime and how a friendship made that chance possible.

PK: How’d you guys end up on Sullivan and Son?

AA: “Our mutual best friend Steve Burn, who is Asian and Caucasian, which makes him Caucasian – that’s his joke. We’re all touring comic and we would text each other from
the road about how miserable we were. You know, getting stuck in airports, being alone, and living in hotels out of our suitcases. One day I got a text message from Steve that said, ‘Don’t worry, one day I’m going to write a show for us so we don’t have to this s**t anymore’.

“We’re still doing it. But he was kind enough to write a pilot with all of us in mind, to play kind of like loose versions of ourselves.He took it to Vince Vaughn’s production company and along with Vince and Peter Billingsley, the went to all the networks and TBS bought it. We shot a pilot, couple months later they picked it up for a season. We got picked up for a second season, and now we’re going on season three.

PK: Awesome.

AA: “It was kind of one of those, just in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time stories. Which is rare for me…so this was a great blessing.”

At the end of his story, a hope swelled up in me.

We spend so much of our lives planning for our futures and how we’re going to get there. We never think someone we meet along the way will provide us with a detour that gives us a different – if not better path than we planned for.

Stand up versus sit down

PK: Do you miss being able just to do stand up or do you enjoy kind of stand up and then having a TV show at the same time?

OB: “Doing both is so fun, cuz’ like, once you do more television and film stuff, people actually respect you at your shows, versus, like being the underdog. I always thought that was an interesting transition where, for years you have to keep proving that you’re funny, then you get them and it’s great. And then it’s almost like, when people know you, it’s the opposite, you have to like prove you’re not funny. Like the first five minutes they want you to be funny, and if you’re bad, you still die, but it’s a lot easier to go in strong.”

AA: “It’s nice to have the two different dynamics. Having a TV schedule, a Monday through Friday gig, normally in bed by midnight…going to rehearsals and stuff. Where as comedians we’re constantly on the road, our work schedule starts at night, you’re up kind of late for whatever reason…but it’s nice to have both. Like, a lot of artists have both.”

As a young adult, I worry if i won’t end up where I’d like to be. I’ve always had the idea that adults just knew where they wanted to be and that they got there. Sometimes they don’t know and they don’t plan, but once they get somewhere good, they work to stay.