Mid-year resolutions: recharge for a purpose
There was a rogue bottle cap on my counter this morning. On the way to the trash can, I noticed something was printed on the bottom:
As July 1st approaches, the mid-point in the calendar year provides a much needed reset for many of our energies. As artists, the "charge" we must have to continue a pursuit of heroic proportions oftentimes begs to be plugged back in.
Prompted by both the calendar and the fortunate bottle cap, I am using this week as my fill-up.
What specifically do I need an UNDO button for?
For most of my upbringing, and into my college and graduate school studies, my schedule was regimented and planned to the minute. Classes from 8 to 3, rehearsal from 4 to 9, homework and studying until 11, interspersed with social meal breaks and, if I was lucky (or experiencing a panty crisis), laundry.
These schedules were made by someone else. I agreed to them when I entered each class or auditioned for each show, but I did not ever sit down and imagine which scenes would be worked on when, or consider what units to test in the first exam.
I realize now that since I was five, I never had to plan my life because I had someone else doing that for me: be it a director, a teacher, or my mother.
As a married, self-employed adult still actively pursing a professional artistic career, I have found adhering to my own idea of a schedule long-term difficult. Is this because I am so conditioned to stick to a project for six to fifteen weeks and then move to the next, just like I did from show to show growing up? Or is it because this "freedom" from someone else's idea of time management is so frighteningly liberating, I cannot seem to make a decision on what I should spend all of this unplanned time on (and the perfectionist / OCD'er in me that wants to make it the best or most efficient plan possible)?
I am slowly learning, through my own meditation and growing comfort with myself as a human being, that it is less about how or when I do it and more about if. When I think of the time I have wasted trying NOT to waste any time, the irony is souring.
My number one mid-year resolution is to quit feeling like I need to plan everything so precisely to be successful, and to just take action instead. The course will show itself and important things will always get done if I just roll with it. Giving up the appearance of being busy (my mac calendar sure looks colorful - I must be getting things done) will be liberating.
What is your UNDO button undoing this July 1st?
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| "To the UNDO button" |
Prompted by both the calendar and the fortunate bottle cap, I am using this week as my fill-up.
What specifically do I need an UNDO button for?
For most of my upbringing, and into my college and graduate school studies, my schedule was regimented and planned to the minute. Classes from 8 to 3, rehearsal from 4 to 9, homework and studying until 11, interspersed with social meal breaks and, if I was lucky (or experiencing a panty crisis), laundry.
These schedules were made by someone else. I agreed to them when I entered each class or auditioned for each show, but I did not ever sit down and imagine which scenes would be worked on when, or consider what units to test in the first exam.
I realize now that since I was five, I never had to plan my life because I had someone else doing that for me: be it a director, a teacher, or my mother.
As a married, self-employed adult still actively pursing a professional artistic career, I have found adhering to my own idea of a schedule long-term difficult. Is this because I am so conditioned to stick to a project for six to fifteen weeks and then move to the next, just like I did from show to show growing up? Or is it because this "freedom" from someone else's idea of time management is so frighteningly liberating, I cannot seem to make a decision on what I should spend all of this unplanned time on (and the perfectionist / OCD'er in me that wants to make it the best or most efficient plan possible)?
I am slowly learning, through my own meditation and growing comfort with myself as a human being, that it is less about how or when I do it and more about if. When I think of the time I have wasted trying NOT to waste any time, the irony is souring.
My number one mid-year resolution is to quit feeling like I need to plan everything so precisely to be successful, and to just take action instead. The course will show itself and important things will always get done if I just roll with it. Giving up the appearance of being busy (my mac calendar sure looks colorful - I must be getting things done) will be liberating.
What is your UNDO button undoing this July 1st?