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My students come to me asking, “How do I make an A in your class?”
“Turn in your homework, completed and accurate, on time,” I reply.
The students, exasperated, say, “Yes, we know about homework, but how do we make an A?”
An overweight man comes to his personal trainer asking, “How do I lose the weight?”
The trainer replies, “Exercise and watch what you eat.”
The overweight man, exasperated, says, “Yes, I know about nutrition and exercise, but how do I lose the weight?”
The actress comes to her coach asking, “How do I become an excellent actress?”
The coach replies, “Train your voice, your body and your imagination.”
The actress, exasperated, says, “Yes, I know about the exercises, but how do I become an excellent actress?”
The lesser comes to the greater asking, “How do I succeed?”
The greater replies, “Do the work.”
The lesser, exasperated, says, “Yes, I know about the work, but how do I succeed without doing it?”
An actor knows that the best way to convince an audience that he is doing a thing is to actually do it. No pretending. No discussion necessary. Just do the action. A salesperson knows that the sales come if you just approach a solid number of people. You don’t focus on the sales, you focus on the approaching.
Focus on the result and one gets frustrated. Focus on the action and one gets results.
Epictetus said, “First, say what you want to be. Then, do what you must do.”
I want to be a full time writer and theatre artist. The steps will take some time to complete.
What do you want to be? What to do you need to do? Are you ready to do it? What’s it gonna take?
And, um, when are you getting started? Or have you already?
Once upon a time some soulful robots got a few instruments and started making music. Really good music. They’re called Recorder. They’re very cool. VERY cool. Dancing robots ain’t just a neato concept, it’s a fun way to make music.
They’re in a contest on Famecast. A few months ago, they won $10K and invested it in better equipment for the band. This time they’re in the running for $20K.
At Dfest, with 150 other bands around, people were leaving the Recorder concert to grab their friends and drag them back to Recorder’s stage, saying things like, “you have to see this!”
It’s not just that they’re my pals. They have a cool sound and are better than the others in this month’s competition. They are the next big thing. Check ‘em out. Love them. Everyone else does.
http://www.famecast.com/contest/stage.php?sid=3&rid=1017&aid=5543&vid=9531
Thanks, kids.
Oh, and there’s a Christian Band contest on the site, too, ahem, if anyone is interested.
I get up Mon through Fri at 5 am or a little earlier to get to work. This is driving me completely, totally, all-encompassingly, destroy-my-will-to-live-or-at-least-to-be-nice-to-people-’cause-if-I’m-not-happy-why-should-you-be-ING-LY insane.
I’m a night person. I cannot – can not – go to sleep before midnight. I will lie down and just plain lie there. Lie there for hours. Ok, not hours. I don’t have that kind of patience. I get up. I do stuff.
So for several months now I have been forcing myself into bed to lie awake for a while. OR I will go ahead and stay up until I am ready to sleep. Which is around 1am or 2am, usually. If I have the opportunity to hit the sack and then rise the next morning by my own clock, I get to bed between 2 and 3 am and wake around 9 am. Six or seven hours of sleep is plenty and I am fine for the day.
But yeah, 2 am to 9 am is perfectamundo. I honestly don’t get all you weirdos that go to bed before midnight on purpose. So many people I know are all like, ooh! It’s eight o’the clock! MUST be in bed and sleeping. Or nine. Even people watching Jay Leno are up past nine. Come on.
‘Course, sleeping is weird, anyway. What if you were an alien and you had never seen anyone sleep? As in, no one of your species sleeps? Then you meet us, and you notice that at least once a day, these creatures lie down and become unconscious. Often for several hours.
What would you do? Would you try to wake the unconscious human? Would you call for a doctor? Wouldn’t you freak out? That’s all I’m sayin’. Sleep is a freakshow.
Now, once 2 am comes, it’s bedtime, kids. Bed Time. Unless there’s something really interesting keeping me up. I can go all night, if I’m interested in what’s going on. But around 2 I look around and if I see nothing of interest nearby, it hit the sack. After 2 am, you’re on your own.
And if I sleep past 9 or 9:30 I feel horrible. Partly it’s physical. I feel like I’ve slept too long. Partly it’s ’cause I don’t want to sleep the whole day away. So it’s always up at nine, I don’t care who ya’are if you sleep past nine you’re lazy lazy lazy…
Right this second I’m watching the sun go down out my window and knowing that, as it has every day for the last thirty six years, my energy level is about to hit the roof. Sundown is a sleepy time for me. I feel the need to nap in the heat of the day, even if I don’t always do it. But once that top of that life-giving sphere sinks below the horizon LOOK OUT! It is ON, baby.
So while the current job is fine in terms of my ability to do it, my relationships with my coworkers, etc., I’m looking elsewhere. Not only do I think I can do better than 5am. I think I can do better than 10 an hour, too.
Wish me luck and send leads if you hear of them – thanks to those who have already lent assistance in the search. So many tools for looking for work!
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