Sticky Tar

Ever tried.  Ever failed.  No matter.  Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better.

Rejection is really purposeful redirection.  

My good friend K. sends me inspirational quotes in texts and emails from time to time.  K. recently became a dad to two beautiful twin baby girls and he has, understandably, been focused elsewhere.  So it's been awhile since some quotational encouragement has floated my way on the ethers of a text.  So when I got the above two quotes from K. yesterday, with no other explanation or context, I had to smile.  K. doesn't know this - and not many people do - but I've been feeling pretty discouraged lately.  I've fallen into bad habits and started looking at the success of others and questioning where I'm at in my career.  Wishing I was further along, wondering if it's time to cut my losses and move on.  Forgetting that someone else's success has nothing to do with mine.  That we are all on our own journeys and that I'm continuing to work toward my success and when it comes, I hope people are happy and not resentful.  And I'm ashamed to say that that ugly emotion has tried to sneak up on me.  And has maybe tapped me on the shoulder.  But today is a new day.  And I always have the choice to shift my perspective.  And I'm not a wooly mammoth stuck in a tar pit* - I can shake off this feeling of being "stuck" and "on a hamster wheel" and choose "purposeful redirection."  And be excited about where the day will take me.

And I am.

There is a run in my immediate plans.  I have a writing assignment to work on for my new sketch comedy writing class, I have episodes to tweak for our new webseries, I want to get started on my screenplay that I literally dreamt up, and I have some business on the "business side" to take care of - some letters that need to get out by the end of the week.  It is going to be a gorgeous day and I'm thankful that I get to spend so much of it being creative and working on my craft.  I'm ready to fail better.

(*We visited the La Brea Tar Pits when my parents were here last week. And in my morning pages this morning, I kept thinking about that image of the poor wooly mammoths, stuck in tar.  Even if the tar was only an inch thick, they could get stuck.  And they would just have to stand there and hopefully die from exposure - from thirst and hunger.  Or, if they were unlucky, a predator would get there first and attack the easy prey.  Of course, then the predator would get stuck too.  Unless they were a vulture, pecking and ripping away at the mammoth's flesh and flying away.  Prehistoric times were brutal in LA.  So when I start to feel "stuck" again, I'm going to remind myself to NOT become the wooly mammoth and avoid the tar.  Because not much has changed over the eons...the vultures have just become figurative.)