So right about now you are probably in one of two camps: either doubling down on some New year’s resolutions, or you’re like, “um, screw that. I don’t do resolutions.” Perhaps you’ve had your heart broken by resolutions not working in the past and of course you aren’t alone. I am myself not a big resolution girl because they generally don’t work the way we do them and they set us up for failure and heartbreak .
HOWEVER, today I’m not writing about resolutions or workbooks to change your life. I’m writing about feeling SCATTERED. Uuuugghhh. Feeling scattered is EXHAUSTING. And it totally keeps you from being creative, from feeling centered and calm, from feeling productive in a meaningful way.
I am reading a book called Life Reimagined by Barbara Bradley Haggerty, and she tells a story about her father who tried to learn French and continued to do it for years and years hardly being able to speak it well at all but just kept on doing it I assume because he liked it on some level. But the great line that her father said was: “Some things are worth doing poorly.” What a great and hilarious idea for an overachiever to ponder!
Today I want to write about fear, how that leads us to sabotage ourselves, and how practicing the tools of improv comedy can solve so many of our problems.
Last week I asked the wrong question: What is your definition of success? I wondered about happiness and about accomplishment and how the twain shall meet. But my real question was “how do we have a basically fulfilling life?” And I think the answer is that “meaning” is what leads to a sense of fulfillment and happiness.
So, you wake up every morning with a sort of looming dread. It’s been years of this. The newspaper is sitting by the front door or you grab your phone to read it online. You go from a state of relatively refreshed well-being (because unconscious), and then you basically screw yourself. Bam. The reality of what’s happening in our country and our planet comes crashing back down. Great way to start your day. You’re a genius. Fun times.
Reviewers, smart ones, keep art alive. Now some smart ones just don’t like your stuff and they can piss off, but sometimes they do something that makes them a part of the beauty of the artistic process. And props to them for that!
When we are stripped down to our most primitive level, you’d think we’d become wonderfully clear, instinctive, a perfectly functioning animal. But clearly this isn’t what happened to many of us in labor.
I’ve got it. I figured it out! Here’s the deal. Complaining makes you focus on what’s wrong. And if affirmations ain’t cuttin’ it for ya to help you focus on what’s right and what you want more of, then you’ve got to just not focus on either the good or the bad: you’ve got to Create.
Today I have to start writing the next song for my show. Um…Nope. No ideas. Caffeine didn’t help. The fear of a looming deadline didn’t do it. Forcing myself to just sit the heck down at my desk didn’t just make it magically happen.
It was Trump. Specifically the comment that the 3,000 Puerto Ricans who died from the hurricane, didn’t actually die. (Seriously. Read the article here.)
Oof. It’s over. Cookouts and sunblock and road trips and cute sandals.
Next up: Staff meetings and carpool coordination and time to dye your hair back from that Summer Beach Blanket Bingo Blonde experiment to Office Brown.
I’m a comedian. You’d think I spend my days writing jokes, funny songs, doing photo shoots like lying in a massive pile of banana peels. You know, the usge. Because that seems like what a comedian should do. But nope. Nopety nope nope. I am a professional Self-Promoter. Ugh. Garglefalookymuuuuugh. (That’s a comedy barfing sound.)
