The Plan

So, you want to be an actor?  Congratulations!  You've stepped onto that proverbial "path less traveled."

Now what?

I'm not going to lie to you and promise gold at the end of this road.  It can come, absolutely, as can fame.  Whether or not that will happen for you is not my call to make.

There are things we can do to improve our chances.  I've talked about some of them already in this blog.  I'll talk about others in the future.  That's not what I'm doing today.

Today, I'm talking about the path.

If you've made the choice to act as a career, you've done something brave.  It's possible that some around you would use different words to describe it.  Even if you're blessed enough to have positive, supportive people in your life, those negative words may bounce around the inside of your head from time to time.  Ridiculous, irresponsible, head-in-the-clouds, unrealistic...you know the ones I mean, right?

This choice is one that will test and try you.  It will ask you to get comfortable being uncomfortable.  Then, once you've gotten comfortable there, it will ask you to go a step farther.

Here's the other thing about this path:  it can take some unusual twists and turns.

There is very little that is linear about an artistic life.  It veers off in fascinating and unexpected ways.  We think things are headed in a certain direction, and then BAM, we find ourselves in a completely different place than we originally envisioned.

That is a beautiful thing.

I believe that there is a plan for our lives.  We can fight against that plan, but my experience is that when we do, we break.  Running away from the plan just leads us back to it.  Pushing forward, trying to muscle through our own idea of what the plan should look like just makes us exhausted.  Railing against the heavens might be fun at times, but doesn't really do all that much.

Embracing this path, with all of its magnificent variety of switchbacks and detours, is the only way that I've found to have what's really most important.  Peace.

Fame and fortune are great, but they won't give us peace.  Letting go and trusting the plan will.

If we can do that, success will be ours, whether or not fame and fortune are a part of it.