Whew. Talk about pressure. Deep huh? It's kind of a blessing though, if you think about it. To feel like you're being completely present in the moment all the time - it's one way to try and resist waking up one day and feeling that life has just passed you by.
As someone who addictively daydreams about my future, it can be difficult to take the time to seriously reflect on the past. Since today marks my one year anniversary of living in Los Angeles, it feels fitting to visit this topic for a bit. So, just for some fun and reflection, here are some of the things I've experienced this past year:
Starting this blog / being more in debt than ever before / long-term unemployment / working at a water park with mostly high schoolers who thought I was their age / working as a brand ambassador / being a paid audience member for some game shows / working with a non-profit organization / being indecently exposed to on my walk to the bus / being serenaded by a man with a guitar named Smiles on my walk home from the bus / seeing a man almost pull his gun out on someone in a car directly in front of me / trying new foods such as falafel, baklava and grilled plantain / helping a directing class at USC by acting in a scene / singing a couple of lines in Mandarin for a Vivo commercial / playing Annie Hall in a student scene at Loyola Marymount University & randomly seeing Billy Bob Thornton standing outside while I was going over lines / attending several screenings and Q&A's at the SAG Foundation / attending the screening and Q&A for the season finale of Gotham / meeting actress Bellamy Young (Mellie from Scandal) / meeting actor Dennis Haskins (Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell) / attending Peter Jackson's Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony / attending a vegan cookbook signing party at Russell Simmons' house / karaoke / attending several industry meet-ups and parties / volunteering at the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival and conducting a couple of the Q&A sessions / riding a train / seeing the Pacific Ocean / reading The Hobbit / hiking to the Griffith Observatory at Griffith Park / seeing the Hollywood sign several times / having my first Skype audition / auditing several acting classes / writing lyrics for a song / writing a short comedic script / writing my first spec script / attending a poetry reading / standing on my first "red carpet"
There are reasons to look back just as there are reasons not to. We obviously don't want to dwell on the past in the form of regret. Everything in our past happens for reasons that we may never come to know or understand. I want to bring up two reasons why you should reflect on the past: 1) To evaluate what worked/didn't work when it comes to planning what you want for the future 2) To appreciate how far you've come/how much you've accomplished. Think about this one. How can you appreciate your future accomplishments if you didn't think back to your past accomplishments and learn to appreciate those first? Some of the most "successful" people out there are never happy because they're always looking ahead at the things they don't have or the things they haven't accomplished and never take the time to be grateful for what they do have and what they have accomplished already. If you feel for some reason that you haven't accomplished anything, don't beat yourself up. You probably have accomplished something and just don't realize it, but either way, you can always benefit from reason #1 - what worked/didn't work.
Armed with reasons why you should look back, you now need to analyze what you're specifically looking for. Was there a specific time when you "fell off the wagon"? What was going on in your life around this time? Was a particular person always there when things started to slide downhill? Were they a part of the problem or were they always there to pick you back up? Look for patterns and traps to avoid. When you feel yourself entering familiar territory, think back to how things turned out before and why they turned out that way.
There was a time very recently in which my life took a downturn. I was starting to feel hopeless that the career I've been pursing for such a long time would ever come to fruition. While feeling hopeless is a horrible and dangerous place to be, the good news is that I was pretty sure I knew the reason for it and I had faith that it was just a phase. That's the irony: I had hope that I wouldn't always feel hopeless. It's interesting that as I'm writing this, I had to change it to past tense. I had jotted down notes for this blog of when I was presently feeling hopeless, but sure enough, I made it through that bitter phase before this will even be published. Whenever you find yourself in that kind of dark place, give yourself the peace of mind of always believing that it's just a phase - that "this too shall pass."
When along for the ride and you come across a speed bump in the road, think back to how you overcame it before and use that knowledge to keep sailing forward on the journey that is your life.
