giving up on prestige & stability to unblock your best work

Author's Note: I'm in the process of writing my first book on how to build and sustain a creative life. This post may be the basis for one section of the book. If you're compelled, engage with it - tell me your stories, share your experiences, let me know where and how this resonates with you. And thanks for letting me share my process, Wellers. Lots of advanced love to you for your generosity. A constant and colorful narrative has been playing in my head as of late. I look around at the world and imagine alternate realities of my life. I imagine having money, not lots of it, but enough that booking a vacation wouldn’t feel like taking out a second mortgage (not that I know what having a first mortgage feels like). I imagine having a normal work schedule. I imagine knowing that one day I’ll have a retirement savings. It all looks and feels so stable from my vantage point. It looks grown up. It looks grounded.

And then I look around at my life - our little rental apartment in Queens, my MacBook Pro from 2007 without a battery because I can’t afford a new battery or a new computer, my bank accounts where I need to constantly shuffle around money to pay the bills on time and I see my reality. It’s very much an artist’s life. It’s feels inconsistent, incoherent, untamed. It has all the trimmings of uncertainty and hand-me-downs that you’d expect of someone disregarding financial stability to favor the pursuit of passion.

Which makes it tricky when you lose your passion. I haven't loved acting as much lately. Let me be clearer: I haven't loved the business of acting as much lately. In her play The Understudy, Theresa Rebeck writes, “Being an actor is great. When you get to do it.” This is Truth. But we don’t always tell the truth about what happens to us when we don't get to do it. The times we don’t get to create. The times we feel oh so very trapped in a system that doesn’t seem to have room for us. These are the moments it feels like the artist’s life we're living is merely a facade because we are not actually engaged in the point of leading an artist’s life: making the art. We are ideas of identity. We are casings around the gap between wanting and doing.

This is maybe the biggest question of your career. Not only for actors, of course, but for anyone who feels they have a calling they must follow come hell or high water. Because when hell and high water inevitably show up at your door, this big question has to be answered: Do I love this enough? Is this worth it?

I have been asking myself this question for a hot minute now and I think, for me, it’s come down to this: if you choose to really live an artist’s life, one with magic and power and agency in it, you no longer have time to care about stability. Would it be nice to have? Of course. Is it worth chasing anymore? Hell to the no.

The pursuit of stability is unquestionably linked to the pursuit of prestige. For me, I actively pursued prestige by looking to anyone who would cover my insecurity with good reviews, compliments and buoyant optimism. I wanted so badly for everyone else to tell me how it would all turn out well so that I could easily and comfortably make my way from gig to gig knowing that I was always inching closer to “making it.” [Sidenote: Let me know when you figure out what “it” is.] The problem with that is that when you base your entire trajectory on grabbing prestige and stability as fast as possible, you blind yourself to what makes you shine. You’re looking to fill the market’s demands, not your soul’s. Your strengths and nuances get drowned out by the big, bad roar of SUCCESS. The one thing that actually could create stability for you - an authenticity in your work - is the one thing you’ve given up.

I lost my passion for the work because I put my passion into ambition. I have been chasing a finish line for years because the rest of the world agreed this finish line was the best possible outcome - as stable as it could ever get. So if I’m utterly honest with myself (painful though it may be), all of those years, it was never about the work. It was about being the best. And we all know what kind of work shows up when we are focused on “what they’ll think” instead of what we know. Stale, meaningless, blank, boring work.

It makes sense that we crave the stability we think success will bring. We think we live in a world of finite things. We look around and see buildings, structures, order. But that's not the nature of the world. The nature of the world is uncertain, ever-changing, chaotic. The butterfly effect and all that. What we see in the world as finite is merely a representation of the human search for order. But that yearning comes from our mind - not our nature. Our real nature reflects chaos and change; as Walt Whitman wrote in Song of Myself:

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Our very nature is to contain multitudes and so should our art. It's in our nature to be thrown off, unbalanced, unhinged. So it stands to reason if our art is going to compel the world in any meaningful way, then it must contain a recognizable reflection of those natural  multitudes. And so, if our art (and artist's life) does not obey the laws of our very nature, we are automatically sacrificing its power and falling short.

If I’m going to be living the aforementioned artist’s life of living paycheck to paycheck, then I better be making more than stale, meaningless, blank, boring work. Not everything I touch will be gold, and I’ll surely look back in a few years at the work I’m doing today and cringe, but at least I will have pursued the glory of the work itself - not my attachment to it, not my benefit from it, and certainly not any prestige or stability it might bring.

Even if the paycheck, the award, the stacked resume do show up, they will never generate enough satisfaction if you’re not doing your best work. Nothing can cover up shortcomings. Nothing can cover up regret. Letting your best work out of you day after day, despite crappy circumstances, despite instability, despite daydreaming of alternate realities is the direct route to reigniting your passion, remembering why you committed in the first place and playing for keeps. And living that life is totally worth it.

How has the quest for prestige and stability affected you?

all images via Pinterest

goodbye 20s: the biggest mistakes of my last 10 years

Reflecting at the turn of a decade ain't nothin' new. It's an easy, clean, obvious way to structure self-growth.  It's the proverbial fork in the proverbial road, so we think, well this seems like a good time to make a change. As I stare down my own fork in the road, I'm struck and overcome with enormous gratitude for the life that has built up around me. I am excited for what is to come. But mostly, I am profoundly indebted to the mistakes of my 20s. They were all so generous to me, and I would make them all again to get where I am now. But now that I'm here, oh dear God, I'm ready to give them up so I can make brand new ones.

Here are the biggest hits (or misses) of my 20s to which I'm saying thanks for the growth and goodbye forever:

Being there for everyone else but not for myself. I have The Good Girl Complex (GGC) where you assume that being what everyone else needs means you are being a good person. In my 20s, I would say yes to absolutely everything just so I didn't let anyone down. Now I am learning that saying yes to everything means no one actually gets to know you. No one actually knows what makes you tick, what you like, what you see, who you are. No one knows any of that, including you. You cannot possibly create genuine connections by lying to yourself and to others. You cannot possibly give your heart away, create the work of a lifetime, take any huge and profitable risks if you don't show up authentically. The 20s are a great time to try out what everyone else expects of you, but make sure if you do this that you burn out enough to stop doing it as soon as possible.

Following a prescribed path instead of defining what moved me. More GGC: I believed in dues and paying them. Okay, if you're here, just stop doing that now. Yes, there is always something to learn and there are always people to revere, but that cannot take the place of your instinct. Absolutely no one in this world has the answer, so your solution to following your dreams or creating the life you want is just as valid as your mother's, or Gandhi's, or any of your Facebook friend's.  There is no prescription to a happy life that you don't already know. The work is in clearing the mental muck out of the way so you can access all of that juicy, instinctual, know-it-all-ness in your bones. Don't get me wrong, you will make mistakes when you follow your own path, but better they be your mistakes, ones you can own and learn from, than someone else's.

Creating false boundaries. Here were stories I used to tell myself on the daily: Actors can't be moms. Actors can't be writers. Successful actors can't have day jobs. For acting work to have value, someone has to give it to you, you cannot make it yourself. Guess what, 20s? I see through you now. The only value anything has is based on the integrity with which you come to it. Those boundaries are lies. We are lying to ourselves when we look at the world and say it's never been done before, because once upon a time - none of this was done before. So it comes down to either wanting to do it or not. False boundaries are lines we draw in our brains and repeat like they are facts. ALERT: just because it's in your head, does not make it true. Cross-check with your heart, your gut, and the people who love you the most.

Denying the fact that I didn't know a lot of things. I know barely anything anymore. Not for lack of trying. I would love to know all the answers to every question, problem, conundrum. I used to think that not having the answer was a weakness, like I should be able to come up with something if I was smart enough. But not knowing leaves you open to being a student, and if there is one thing I want to be doing when I'm 80 years old, it's learning. The way I feel when I learn something brand new ignites my mental fire. It makes me certain that the mystery of this universe will continue unfolding, we will never have the answer, and every day will be more beautiful because of it.

Acting like there was a finish line I was desperately trying to cross. That dull ache of not getting enough done, and over-extending, and collapsing in exhaustion? I'm all set with that. When you're 22 and getting out of school and wondering who you will be, you'll set goals and time limits and benchmarks of success. But before you know who you are, there is no way you can accurately set so many standards for your future self, so those "standards" are completely arbitrary. Every actor has this one, right: be on Broadway before 30. But here's my new one: play the long game with your craft, create a sustainable lifestyle that keeps you creating every day, and if, as you travel forward on this path of making art you cross over Broadway, that'll feel really amazing. Which version do you think has a better chance of "success"? There's no finish line. I'm in it for the long haul.

Not traveling so I was "available." Availability, availability, availability. We are so available to everything else that we forget to show up to our own lives. When I tell people I haven't been to the West Coast, they look at me like I have just emerged from the large rock I must have been under all these years. I never used to plan vacations because of what might happen. I didn't know when the next job or paycheck would come, so I didn't want to leave for fear of missing out. But the world is too big to not go on adventures, and I've learned that when real opportunities come - you'll make yourself available.

And the very biggest mistake of all: trying too hard. This is the biggest, baddest mistake I've ever made. In relationships, jobs, auditions, thought patterns, even self-growth. "I'm working really hard on it..." became a phrase banned from our household over the last year. Less working, more breathing. So this is what I've learned about trying too hard: It's selfish. It's not about understanding what others need, it's about making sure you're what they need. Sometimes, you're just not, but if you try to fit into every mold, you'll feel immense pain and constant rejection. Not everyone needs to like you or your work for you or your work to be likeable. For me, trying too hard was about getting a return on investment. Instead of thinking, how can I help make this situation better or give the people something that makes their lives better, I was attempting to affirm my own life through hard, hard, hard, hard work. I'm not saying you shouldn't throw yourself whole-heartedly into your passion and burn the midnight oil from time to time, but dear loves, it should be easy to get down and dirty.

If there's one thing my 20s have prepared me for, it's the art of mistake-making. I cannot wait to make even stupider mistakes. I cannot wait to learn even bigger lessons, because this decade 'round the mistakes and lessons are going to be unequivocally and authentically my own.

What are your favorite mistakes?

image sources: 1, 2&4, 3 is my own.

instructions for success: stop.

It’s amazing how much we fit into one day. Finding the empty corners to fill, the vacant shadows to brighten, the deep breaths to cover over with words, and texts, and scrolling. It almost seems necessary - in order to move forward, we feel we need to keep moving.

I am always compelled by pioneer stories of perseverance and tenacity and the ten-year-overnight-success. Those people, digging in the trenches at all hours when everyone else had closed up shop or thrown in the ragged towel, inspire me to breathe a lot of life into a lot of dreams. But there is this dark underbelly that we have got to get realistic about:

We need to rest.

It seems luxurious, right? Taking a nap. Taking a walk. Taking a minute. Even that word - taking - makes rest seem gratuitous. Like it’s an extra, or something that doesn’t already exist in us, but something we will pick up along the way if we’re lucky or worthy.

Recently at work, I’ve been talking with my beautiful, driven, badass co-workers about getting up early to teach on those dark, misty mornings and, even though we know our bodies need it, how it’s so hard to just take a nap later on in the day. Why is this such a struggle?

We have this idea in our heads that if we are not in constant motion, physical or mental, we are somehow letting our light die. We convince ourselves that if we are taking some time away to just slow down, we are giving up or quitting or not being there for the people who need us. In other words: we are failing. I think Danielle LaPorte wrote something along the lines of “we think we need to hustle our worthiness.” If we don’t show up every time, everywhere, for everyone, well... we just don’t deserve success.

I struggle constantly with this. You know I’m a Yes Woman. I hate disappointing or letting down or backing off. I often believe that my grit, my dogged determinism to just not stop, is the only reason I have ever accomplished anything. But recently, a vision of an alternative reality came flooding through my mind’s windows and doors. It was a place where slowing down meant digging in. Taking a nap meant being a better wife. Stepping away from obligation meant stepping into my enthusiasm. And then: the phone started ringing. The difficult financial problems started to solve themselves. The laughter got louder. And, maybe most surprisingly, the world did not end.

So many times we think that trudging through our to-do lists, and obligations, and responsibilities makes us a hero. It just makes us tired. And don’t get it twisted, there will be a time when you need to get down in that dirty trench and pull an all-nighter, or an 18-hour day, or a productivity binge that leaves everything else in it’s dust. But if you don’t rest at the right times, you’ll never be able to call on those energy reserves. You will have used them up before they were really necessary. You will feel empty, depleted, and angry. Or at least, that’s what happened to me.

I am all for making it happen. Putting your name out there and defying “reality.” Deciding what you want and creating that life with your whole heart. But when you get sucked into the vortex of busy, you stop knowing what you want. And when you stop knowing what you want, there’s no way to create a life you love.

What if you took five minutes to just sit still without a screen in front of you? What if you created a Pinterest board about things that lit you up, you know, just for fun? What if you called an old friend? What if you said no to something so you could have a real day off? Or (don’t be nervous) two days off?

Let’s put it this way:

What could you accomplish with a clear mind?

What could you dream of doing if you had nothing holding you back?

How would you feel if you just let go and trusted it would be okay?

Who would you be if you honestly believed that your implicit energy (not the manufactured kind) added value to this world?

Because rest, my dear friends, gives you time to answer the important questions. It takes you out of scarcity and brings you to more than enough. It gives you a little extra grace, a ton more drive, and a whole boatload of wonder. And if we’re to accomplish anything big, dreamy, and epicly magical in this life, that’s exactly what it’s going to take.

When do you rest?

All images via Pinterest