..which is why we're going to start with failure first,
Failure
I have felt like a miserable failure more times than I can count. Probably more than I've felt like a success and that definitely adds to a bit of Extreme Down Feelings(say that in a macho voice. Like MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY!). Anyways.
Now part of that feeling is the way I think. I could just fail and be okay with it and this concept will tie into my project and it's goals a little bit farther down...
Now I'm not sure I'm going to college and considering that the majority of my life has been pressure and prepping for that goal..it's a little terrifying. On top of that I don't know anyone who would dare not go to college and anymore it feels like Quinn. You're a dumb celery stick(censored for sensitive eyes). You have failed and will get no where in life and you should just stop now before you have a chance to really disappoint, to really be disappointing...
If I don't go to college. That feels in some way like failing. It was for the longest time the goal of my life and whenever the thought of not going would enter my head, even now when I'm more okay with it, despair starts flooding in and I would end up drowning in it for awhile.
That's a potential failure. Or rather a fear of failure. And the majority of my life is a fear of failure. Not to say that I've never failed. If I said that I'd be lying all over the place and you should slap me. But the fear of it is the more crippling thing in my life over the failure itself and it ties in better with the genius hour project than failure itself. And so.
But none of this answers what failure is to me. And I know this will sound cheesey and I know you may think o my god. EVERYONE SAYS THE EXACT SAME THING. But failure is giving up and letting my fear stop me.
If I had let my fear of failure stop me I would not have the wonderful relationship I have today and without that relationship things would be very different. For one thing I would not be pursuing a career I love because the opportunity would never have arrived and something else, something I don't love as much would be the goal of my life..and I wouldn't be happy. There are so many things that happened because I wasn't afraid to ask. If I had allowed failure to stop me from asking my parents if I could go to New York because I assumed they would say no...I wouldn't have had an amazing opportunity to go to NYC. Just things like that. Things that have ended up perfectly are the things I'm afraid of the most and that is failure. If I let that get in my way and miss the opportunity.
Success
Now to the happier stuff. Here's more of an experience than a haunting concept. Something I've succeed at is...Stage Managing.
This builds off failure. I was terrified to go into the theatre. When I'd walked in there the first time with two of my friends I had a place to hide. But they had dropped and the time had come when Diego had said to come back and see what he needed for us to do.
I almost didn't walk into that door. If they could just drop than I could to..Yeah..it would be okay. On top of that my then crush and current stage manager wouldn't see me and therefore if something( I couldn't think of what something because i wasn't thinking rationally) went wrong...they would never know.
But I'm one of those people that really hates falling through on commitments and so gathering courage followed an actor in and found Diego. He put me up as the spotlight operator and tada my life has changed forever.
Because my then crush and current stage manger was graduating in the spring and a new SM was needed. For whatever reason, Diego saw a potential SM in my little soul and asked if I'd be willing to it try out with the next show and train under MC. I didn't say yes immediately because I wanted to ask my parents first. You know. Always had to clear it with them but for whatever reason it was really hard not to just agree right away.
I did that first show and fell in love with something completely different from equine veterinarian. And honestly it worked because I love horses so much...I obviously don't want to put them down. I want them more as a family than as a job. But I do love science...
But Stage Managing makes me happier than anything and I want to do it for the rest of...until I can't anymore. Not being involved in theatre drives me mad. I'm not going to go into the happiness and excitement and frustration that comes with this and I want to do this as a career and am working toward that goal.
So that's a success in my life. Because after starting Stage Managing I've learned a lot about technical theatre from Diego. I obviously don't know everything, only a small tip of the ice burg. But another thing I'm proud of that, I consider a success is being able to run Coarse Acting Strikes Back this winter. That hasn't happened before, that a student ran the entire show on their own and it just means a lot. I respect my Director more than anyone. He's been an amazing teacher and very kind and helpful and just..you can't not respect him and having him trust me with that meant a lot. So that's a success I'm proud of..
Genius Hour
So lets work on tying all of this together.My goals for this project are to at least become aware of relaxation methods and to use a minimum of one of them consistently. The last post left with saying I was going to try and change the way I thought since that has a huge impact on how you view your life and happiness levels.
That didn't go so well. At least not for awhile. Remember the failure part? Yeah..well. The last few months have been chaos and sadness and being overwhelmed by trying to figure out things I don't understand all on my own..the rest of my life is terrifying but people aren't very helpful when it comes to making things better. Which is why you don't use other people to give you happiness. Grr. I made a thing about this the other day about not putting all of your happiness or whatever into one thing because it will mess you up and then the musical was cancelled and it was like LOOK A PRIME EXAMPLE! Anyways...
I hadn't been doing so well at changing my thoughts. It's so easy to just spiral downward and get stuck there. But the past few days I've been better. And it helps to begin feeling like there's some structure in my life and like there will be a way beyond college to become a stage manager. I can do this...
This weeks goal is to continue improving on the way I think. To take those ugly, sad thoughts and turn them into something that will help me. And to meditate more.
O fun website that some might find fun or helpful is calm.com!
This is a great website, at least for me. Maybe not for every one. I usually use the guided calm for about 10 minutes and just stay there for a few hours. It's reallly nice with headphones but mine broke so..but it's still good. Just shut your door, put a post-it note and just hope no one ignores it.
Sometimes I'll intentionally fall asleep after awhile and use it as a way to calm thoughts before bed but occasionally..meditating is difficult and sometimes I fall asleep without meaning to...whoops. But it's quite nice. I was panicking a little bit the other day and just typed it in, got myself situated in a comfortable spot and just let it go...breaks into Frozen's extremely popular song. ..
