Now Is The Winter Of My Discontent.

Thanksgiving?  Done.  Christmas?  Done.  New Year?  Here.  Me?  I'm here too.  Only I'm not real sure where "here" is, or where I'm trying to go.  I don't know if I need to go back to therapy, find myself a life coach, or just continue to be still and allow my path to reveal itself to me.  In my last post, I mentioned that I have never NOT had goals.  As a child, my goal was to get great grades and get to high school.  As a high school student, my goal was to have a social life and to learn a few things, and make good enough grades to not have my parents kill me and to allow me to go to a college other than "Joe-Bob's College and Car Repair".  While in college, I wanted to become fluent in Spanish and become a good actor, and have some fun engaging in a few 'stupid college-kid tricks'.  Once I graduated from college, my goal was to make my living as an actress.  It took a while to orient myself, but here I am.  Restless.  Now what? 

2002-2004 was all about my making it through my 2-year Meisner program, and 2005 was about launching my acting career.  2006 was about gaining momentum, 2007 was a whirlwind of activity (my best year career-wise yet) that ended in burnout.  2008 was about finding balance.  2009 sits before me like a blank slate.

The good news is that I am able-bodied, and in full possession of my faculties.  More good news:  I have options.  The rub:  I have LOTS of options.  Lots of things that excite me.  If I were independently wealthy, I would spend my time combining artistic pursuits with travel, and philanthropy.  I am not independently (or otherwise) wealthy.  I still take non-acting gigs that deplete me because I never know whether or not this will be the year when my acting career will not yield enough money for me to stay afloat.  I write, I paint, I do arts & crafts.  I try to encourage and inspire people to follow their own passions.  I love the "show" part of show-business, but not too keen on the "business" part.  And as I've said before, there is much more "business" than "show".

So how do I do less of what I don't enjoy doing, and more of what I do enjoy?  How can I do more of the artistic-y, travelly, philanthropic stuff, and less of the "business-y" stuff?

Now that it's here in black-and-white, I know what my over-arcing goal is.  2009 needs to be about moving in a direction that will enable me to do more of what feeds me and less of what depletes me.  What form that will take remains to be seen.  That's the "x" in this equation.

Let's see what happens. 

--Nicole J. Butler

Comments

[Sis Ivd]

I'd say that half of your battle is already won because you realize what you DO want and have been doing what it takes to get you where you want to go, and also realizing what you DON'T want and working real hard not to go there.

You have always accomplished EVERYTHING you've set out to do. Think about it. Being discontented is a good thing because it shows that you will not settle for being just good enough.

Do stuff you like along with business stuff.

Enjoy the process.

[Nicole J. Butler]

Thanks so much for the encouragement. I do get what I want, don't I? A friend of mine always uses the phrase "too hip to be happy". Sounds like me - never satisfied & always wanting more.

Time to go back to the drawing board & craft what I want 2009 to look like.