“Those times when you feel most desperate for a solution, sit. Wait. The information will become clear. The confusion is there to guide you. Seek detachment and become the producer of your life.”
- The Tao of Wu by The RZA
Afew years back, my folks decided to sell the home our family had lived in for more than 20 years. They made the announcement the house was going on the market with the same fanfare as someone running to the post office.
It was just another day.
Though I hadn’t lived in the house since college, I’d grown attached to what it represented.
The birthdays, holidays, BBQs, graduations, and homecomings made the house a collage of memorable, and sometimes defining moments.
It was for that very reason, I struggled to understand why parting ways with such a place seemed so easy for my folks. It didn’t make sense, which made upset me.
But as time went on, I felt my resentment grow into something more interesting.
Appreciation.
Rather then resenting their decision, I started to admire it.
And in the process, I took away some lessons on how to better walk away from an identity you once believed defined you.
It was a tall order, especially for me.
My bias for looking back had more often than not crippled my ability to see ahead.
And even though the lessons were hard won, they were important in my evolution.
“Sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of dreams” — Bernard Pomerance
Not long after finishing drama school, the conviction I once had to perform under the bright lights of Broadway started to fade.
It was subtle at first. So much so, I thought I could just shoo away the doubts. But over time the cries grew louder, my spirit more and more unsettled.
My actions no longer felt in accordance with my values. They had changed because I had.
Still, I was disappointed. I felt like I was slowly taking apart what made me whole.
Performing.
I reprimanded myself, harshly by most accounts, and started to ask myself tough questions.
“Why did you work so hard if you were just planning to quit?
“Who are you without this?
“What the hell do you think you’ll do now, especially at this stage in your life?”
The more grueling the interrogation, the more frustrated I became, and the further I strayed from an answer.
Until it hit me.
I was asking the wrong questions.
When I finally settled down, I began to show more self compassion as I navigated the uncertainty. I asked myself better questions, which were sometimes so good I didn’t need the answers.
It turned out, all the fuss was about loss of identity.
I’d worked tirelessly to cultivate the image of an artist and felt I had to cling to it at all costs.
But what I realized is willfully chasing a goal without knowing why precludes you from paths that may be better for you and ultimately the world.
It’s the same reason people stay in bad marriages, hold on to toxic friends, and fail to leave soul-sucking jobs.
Change is unsettling for most people. It means consulting your unhappiness, accepting your insufficiencies, and tapping into a new type of courage.
For most people that’s far too scary, especially if it means losing your sense of self.
But the truth is, no longer knowing what you want can liberate you. Being requires becoming. And sometimes, letting part of yourself go is the only way to make yourself whole again.
Doubt is actually a chance to embrace the unknown.
To be curious about the uncertainty.
To look at ambiguity as an opportunity to redefine ambitions, or fine tune the old ones.
Because what you want at 20 will be different than what you want at 40. Only, It doesn’t mean you’ve quit a dream but that you’ve evolved and what you value most in life has too.
Conversely, if you still love something but no longer know what role it’s supposed to play in your life, take solace in knowing you never have to quit.
You can still reinvent the role your passion plays in your life.
When acting began to gradually take a less prominent role in my life, I turned to other outlets such as writing, volunteering, and travel. All were forms of artistry that allowed me to express myself in inventive and equally meaningful ways.
Still, the most important lesson my struggle with uncertainty imparted was that we’re not defined by what we do.
Looking back, I’m convinced all those years in voice, movement, and acting class actually had little to do with performance.
Instead, we were being taught to take risks, speak our minds, be lifelong learners, make a contribution, follow our curiosity, trust our intuition, standup again injustice, to connect, to thrive, to have faith, to show courage, to sacrifice, to go towards the fear, to be kind, to fix what we could, observe, focus, and never wait for life but instead go towards it.
And if we were fortunate, we might become great actors along the way.
The point was to be open to where life might take us.
