There was a surprisingly insightful article that I came
across last week on Thought Catalog. I say surprisingly because, no offense to
the writers at TC, but it’s mostly only
filled with listicles on the 24 Ways that
Being a Millenial Sucks or general
essays about eating disorders and lost loves. All things that speak to the
human condition, but when you’re constantly bombarded with opinions on the same
shit, it gets a little redundant and makes you even less likely to relate,
sadly. Anyway, this particular article was about time management. When deciding
what tasks should be done first and what tasks should be eliminated altogether the
author simply asked herself two questions: 1) What am I working toward? and 2)
What are the core values that drive my life? Now, from a time management
standpoint, this article was useless to me. After all, I read this article
while at work… Clearly I chose to manage my time that day by procrastinating. But
it did get me thinking about my goals and where I am in my life right now, so I
decided to briefly (my version of briefly) answer those questions myself since
lately I’ve been feeling like I needed a little reassurance that my life is
heading in the right direction. So here are my answers to the questions:
1)
What am I working toward?
I have two answers to this question. My first answer is that
I’m ultimately working toward becoming a TV comedy writer. I want to be in a
writers’ room with all my friends writing jokes, sketches, scenes, scripts,
etc. Laughing and making people laugh will be part of my career because if you
asked me what I want out of life, that’s really the only constant answer I’ve
had my entire life. I’m going to see to it that it happens in one form or another.
The second, more immediate goal that I’m working toward is to get a permanent,
full time job as an assistant in the industry. I’ve been temping in the
industry for about a year now and I’m even at a temp job now. It’s been great and gotten me some reputable
companies to put on my resume, but after over a year of unsteady employment,
it’s time for some stability in my financial life. I, of course, am doing
things that will help me accomplish these goals which mostly involve networking
and writing.
2)
What are the core values that drive my life?
I’ve found that three things drive
me in life that I also consider to be my core values. The first is my desire to
create things that make people laugh
Whether it’s with my standup
routines or through my sketches and other scripts, I want to make people laugh
from a good place. I call myself a writer and a comedian when I’ve sort of let
myself fall back into my shell that I fought so hard to break out of as a kid.
I don’t write or perform nearly as much as I should, so this serves as a
reminder to myself to keep creating. Recently,
I’ve set weekly writing goals for myself because as a writer I need to be continuously
writing in order to get better my craft. My second core value is something that
I like to call “staying open.”
I want to do things that scare me. I want to
push my boundaries, get out of my comfort zone, and test my fears in a way that
challenges me without being reckless because I also know my limits. I want to
take chances in my career that might not lead me to where I thought I was
going. This is what I call “staying open.” I want to stay open to love, to
people’s differences, their character flaws and maybe learn that they’re not flaws
at all, but just imperfect pieces that make up an amazing human being. I want
to stay open to travel (of course) and trying new things, foods, and hobbies. I
want to have meaningful experiences that I might not have otherwise wanted to
have if I didn’t force myself out of my comfort zone. I want to have my ideas
challenged. I want to stay open to life because
there’s always room for growth. This leads me to my third core value which I
think goes hand in hand with staying open and that is my desire to face my
fears.
Recently, I took a hike with my
boyfriend to some waterfalls in Malibu. The trail ended up being more intense
than I expected, specifically in that I didn’t realize we’d be practically rock
climbing on the edge of this mountain with no equipment. I’m terribly afraid of
heights and there was a time that day where I was literally seconds from
quitting. I was climbing a slippery, wet rock that was I don’t know how many
feet high, to get behind one of the lower waterfalls and the thought of falling
terrified me. My boyfriend told me to grab his hand and that he had me, but I
was still terrified and almost climbed down to safety. But then I thought about
how irrational my fear of heights is. My fear of falling, something so
abstract, was keeping me from enjoying the beautiful waterfall that I was
trying to reach. And it was in that moment I decided I wasn’t going to let this
fear stop me from climbing behind that waterfall. Fear: something invisible that you can’t
touch, but at the same time is so powerful that it can dictate how you live
your entire life. I decided I was better than that. And hell, if I did fall and
break something, or heaven forbid actually die, then that’s that. There’s
nothing I can do about it. My pain and suffering would end because either my
hypothetical injury would eventually heal, or I would be spared the suffering in
my imminent death from falling. So as my body trembled from fear and
adrenaline, I let my boyfriend help me crawl up that beautiful, slippery death
trap. It took everything in me to not look down and I was so grateful that he
was 1) strong enough to actually keep me from falling and 2) there for me to
show me that there wasn’t really anything to be afraid of. My point to that
drawn out story is that I got out of my comfort zone, I faced one of my fears,
and while I’m still not cool with heights, I realized that sometimes you should
do things that scare you because there is always a lesson to be learned and it’s
totally worth it. You might even realize how silly it was to be afraid of
something. And dammit, I was proud of myself for climbing up that fucking rock!
My aspirations scare me too. But
they should because if they don’t, then they’re not worth it**. I ask myself a
lot of questions: What if I don’t make it? What if I don’t become a writer, a comedian,
or just successful in general? But actually that’s fear asking those questions,
not me. And I need to remind myself
constantly that fear can’t control me because what if I do make it? What if I do
become everything I want to be and more? Or what if my aspirations change and I
end up becoming something else? I know that I’ll still be happy because I will
have forged ahead in life in spite of my fears. So I hope that the next time you feel stressed
out, or scared about where your life is going or has gone that you’ll take a
minute to stop and ask yourself these two basic questions: 1) What am I working
towards and 2) What are my core values that drive me in life? It might make you
rethink how you see and live your life. Or it might make you write a really
long blog post like I just did. Either way, I hope it’s useful to someone out
there.
** I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a
quote like this on facebook and/or Pinterest. I don’t know who said it and I
don’t feel like Googling it, but I bet it was Marilyn Monroe. She said everything. Yeah… it must’ve been her…
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