Growing Pains

I have become complacent, lazy, and mediocre.
I am boring myself.

I am tired of being a jack of all trades, master of none.

I think the unfortunate time has come to make a choice.  I hate making choices.  Choices frighten me.

***

My mother likes to say that the world has yet to see what I could do if I singularly channeled all my drive and energy and passion into something.  She's probably right.  I am a chronic half-asser.  I do what it takes to get by.  In doing so, I am constantly disappointed in myself, which isn't the best place to be.

I know I'm capable of crazy things.  My problem (like every artist) is that I have an gargantuan fear of failure.  It terrifies me to the point of paralysis.  The scenario has happened repeatedly where I work myself to a position where I could really launch and be brave and work my butt off and either catastrophically fail or gloriously succeed; I have never allowed myself to leave the launch pad.  Instead, I take the backseat, amble along, and get by.

I'm tired of being underwhelming.  I'm tired of being consumed by my fears.

One of my safeguards from failure is that I over-occupy myself and over-commit myself.  I engross myself in ten tasks or projects at once and placate my frustrations with a failure by success in another realm.  I have to maintain balance.  I fear what shape I would be in if I fully engrossed myself in a project and it flopped.  This has happened on smaller scales, and my skin is still so thin that I have to hermit myself away from everything, grieve, and re-emerge afterwards pretending it's all kosher, when really I'm just building frustration and callouses on my heart.

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that I am adult.  And as such, it is time to start behaving like one.  I have known how to behave as an adult for a long, long time but have allowed myself to use my youth and age as an excuse.  I am not permitted these allowances anymore.

The time has come for some self-evaluation, growth, and intense struggle.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

This is a question I cannot and should not avoid any longer.  If I could be anything in the universe in the short(ish) term, what would I pursue?  The ultimate short term dream would be to be in the ensemble of a Broadway show or national tour.

That just doesn't seem realistic.

I'm not trying to garner pity or "oh no, don't say that"s but I just want to stay honest.  I'm a decent dancer, a decent singer, and a decent actor.  But I feel a little bit like Harold Hill in this regard--I've just tricked everyone into thinking I'm good enough when really it's all a faux facade and I'm not especially great at any of the three.

This leads to the next quandary/conundrum: do I want this badly enough that I kick my butt into some serious, serious training and set myself up for repeated heartbreak and really give this a go?  I mean get my body into crazy shape, take endless lessons, fail, fail, and fail some more and hope that I'm not wasting time?

This is usually the point where my brain says, "Wait! You are moderately successful at so many other things!  Why don't you become a writer?  Why don't you pursue some business endeavor?  Why don't you become an entrepeneur?  Why don't you find some stable job that you know you could maintain?"  Here is where trouble enters.  But these same cyclical issues would probably occur in these other fields as well.  I also can't tolerate wasting time.  What if I do say, "let's do this. 100% guns a-blazing" and three or five years later I haven't made it?

If I'm being really painfully honest with myself (which is never fun), none of the alternatives could ever satisfy me as wholly as performing. Creating on the other side of the table/teaching and writing serve as close, close seconds (and I am convinced that I could be satisfied enough doing them for a living) but performing is my one true love.  It's unfortunate that it's so damn hard.

I haven't found the answer just yet, but I am not procrastinating the search any longer.  At least the questions and honest perseptive is out there as well as I know how at the moment.

I apologize to my family for having two swear words in this article.  This isn't the kind of language you enjoy and I hope you'll forgive me for being ineloquent.  I apologize to my readers for being boring as of late, and for being self-deprecating (albeit more honest than I have been lately) in this post.  Lastly, I apologize to myself.  Step it up, Gentsch.  I know you can.