Hi Bon! Happy New Year!
As always, your column blows me away, and this one was no exception. I just got back from a post-holiday visit with my family, and I had to laugh at your mention of David Nathan Schwartz’s, “If you get five musicians in a room you get music,” because my little brother is a musician. He and I often share stories about the rollercoaster ride of being creative and being aware of the business aspect of the artistic world. We often seem to be on the same page with our process, and we buoy each other along the way.
The thing that’s interesting about this and how your column ties in is that there is a person in my family who is the polar opposite of my brother’s “buoy.” This person is a total “complain about the waitress” type, and it’s so disheartening to be in her company. Even when my bro and I point out that the waitress might be slammed (give her a break), or we try to create a little bit of light on any situation, this person chooses to stay in her dark cloud and pick things apart. It makes family visits challenging, that’s for sure, and I imagine there are a lot of people who go through this experience with their loved ones.
But you know what I discovered? We have a choice. We get to choose every day how we want to live our lives. We get to choose what we’re putting out into the world and what we’re bringing into our world. We can choose to enjoy the ride, and that’s what I choose to do!
My brother says, “A mistake is only a mistake if you label it so.” And I love that! As a musician, he’s learned that a “mistake” can lead to an incredibly cool riff, and I love that unlimited approach to art. Isn’t that why we dig it in the first place?
Choosing to be open to the ride makes every day pulse with possibilities and enjoyment.
Thanks for sharing the ride, Bonnie. And thanks for your cool column and for recommending Outliers. I am definitely going to check it out!
Best wishes,
Laura Daniel
Lovely email, Laura. Thank you for the “yes, and.” I really appreciate it.
Sounds like your family member is very much like the friend with the Eeyore Syndrome I mentioned last week. I also like to visualize that person as Pig Pen in the Peanuts comic strips. Except instead of walking around in a cloud of his own filth, his cloud is his own worldview. That’s his “everything is ugly” cloud. And I don’t have to look through it. And sometimes trying to help him not look through it is an exhausting and futile effort.
Some people just choose to see the negative. Good for them! They’re getting exactly what they want out of life, because they believe that all that’s there is “bad” and, amazingly, that’s what they keep seeing. But I have to be happy for them. Because they’re getting exactly what they want out of life.
I’m so glad you have your brother to buoy your spirits and vice-versa. That’s awesome! I would imagine that quite a few readers have come home from holiday visits feeling drained by the family with whom they no longer connect on a grousing level. 😉
I remember when I was a teacher (this was a very brief period of my life, after I got my master’s in journalism and started working on a PhD in instructional technology — a program from which I would eventually drop out in order to pursue acting one more time before retiring altogether) at a lovely private school. Three other teachers and I took the fifth and sixth graders of Athens Academy on a four-day field trip to Savannah, Georgia. It was raining. It was cold. It was miserable. And we were surrounded by 60 kids who were bored or hyper or miserable or under-stimulated or all of the above. On a bus. In the rain. For four days.
One of my colleagues never once complained. The other three of us would bitch and moan every time the kids were out of earshot. This was miserable. These conditions couldn’t be worse. This storm was horrific and all of the beach and historical sights we were going to see couldn’t be accessed due to the weather and what the heck were we gonna do with all of these dang kids? Finally, I asked my colleague who wouldn’t complain why it was she wouldn’t complain? Vent? Grouse? Share her misery to get some relief?
“I gave up complaining for lent,” she replied.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m not even Catholic and the very next year, I gave up complaining for lent. Because during this four-day road-trip from hell, the one person who was a beacon of light the entire time was this particular teacher. She was a joy to be around. She had fun. She made fun out of a not-fun experience. She rocked. And I, brilliant 27-year-old that I was back then, had so much to learn.
We choose whether we want to complain. See the bad. Express the bad that we see. Share the misery. In fact, because that next year in which I gave up complaining for lent made my life sooo much more pleasant than it had been before, the following year I gave up negative self-talk! Yep. Every time I wanted to beat myself up about flubbing a line or to tell myself I couldn’t possibly meet with that agent or get a shot with that casting director, I would stop it right then. Just stop it. No more!
And since then, I don’t need an excuse like lent to give up the negativity. I don’t need to make a new year’s resolution. I just don’t “go there.” And you’re right. It’s totally and completely our choice — every single moment of every single day — whether we do it or don’t. What power! Isn’t that delicious?
Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!
Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/000974.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.
That IS freaking delicious! It’s so funny when we make that change, and think back to our younger selves and think, what the heck were you thinking!!! lol Man thanks for flipping that switch and moving into your own power to create your own happiness.
Good luck to you, Megan, in your continued quest to help others flip this switch. 🙂 You rock. Keep dancing!