In that moment I didn't know what my problem was...only that something wasn't right in my heart. That much I knew.
Monday, October 21, 2019
What to Do When You've Had Enough
In that moment I didn't know what my problem was...only that something wasn't right in my heart. That much I knew.
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4 comments:
I think that this is an overwhelming feeling for many people within this school as well as in the industry as a whole and that the discussion of how to handle the over-whelming desire to just walk away is not talked about enough and it’s only to our detriment. I don’t believe that anyone can really be doing their best work when they are constantly having the thought of just walking out the door and never returning but we also aren’t fostering an environment in which we can discuss our feeling openly before we get to such an extreme point. Unless you are close with someone, I think it can be nearly impossible to gauge if they are feeling like they should just walk out the door because as they article says technicians tend to hide that very well again something I believe to be to our default. I believe that our training as leaders and managers allow us to put up this very strong front of invincibility, appearing as if we have it all together even if our mind is inner turmoil. This idea that we must have it all together persists into our non-leadership role interacts in order to maintain this ideal of strength as a person. I think that asking for help and communicating with others how you’re feeling is difficult but crucial to sustaining a career in the industry and not driving yourself of the end of a cliff in the process.
Removing any religious allusions and references from this, I think the idea of this article is particularly helpful, especially to a student enrolled at Carnegie Mellon. The execution ultimately wasn’t particularly effective in this article, unfortunately. Facing a lot of stress (social, academic, physical, etc.) is a universal thing that people face, but I think this article only focused on approaching these issues in a religious manner, which I ultimately don’t feel is efficient. Say one needs help managing their stress, but does not follow a particular religion. The article itself tends to rely solely on religious faith, and proves to not provide any advice away from it. In order to efficiently approach this topic from a universal perspective, I think it would be best to make as few religious allusions as possible. Especially in making one’s main points I wouldn’t recommend basing your points around prayer or faith. The root of the points should be based around something less arguable overall, I feel. Especially if one is not particularly involved in religion, I sense this type of thematic point-making just targets a specific audience and wastes the overarching issue that the title of the article suggests it could touch on.
I have definitely faced this sort of seemingly hopeless frustration in theatre. One particular situation pops into my mind when thinking of a moment where I made a mistake that made me feel ready to just give up, never go back, never show my face again, etc. etc. I can think of other moments where I have seen other theatre technicians make a mistake that made them feel that same way. It's hard. Very hard. No matter what side of it you're on (experiencing it firsthand, seeing it happen to someone else), it's truly heartbreaking. And though I doubt this is exclusive just to this industry (or exclusive to work at all), I'm sure many of us here can relate to it on the theatre side of things.
I don't think the solutions proposed are necessarily applicable to me as I don't see myself as that religious (I do think it's important to consider that this is a religious website that posted this article, so it shouldn't be a surprise to see many of the solutions to this problem being religiously-oriented), but I have overcome this sort of situation and know what works for me. For me, just working with what I have in that given situation and telling myself that I will walk in the next day and do better than I've ever done before is all I need to restore my motivation. To me, one tragic setback means my next project will set new heights never seen before. It's just a chance for me to prove myself again as an even better technician than they may have seen me as to begin with. Everyone has different ways of dealing with these things, but all I can say is, the smiley and exciting moments of something I did working out just right outweigh in number and effect the moments I have monumentally screwed up. That's all I need.
This article took an unexpected turn although I think the message is still quite clear. All too often do people want to just get out, leave, or however they feel that also relates to exiting. This is huge in theatre but rarely done. I worked with people who clearly were done but didn’t leave and people who appeared fine and later revealed they couldn’t handle it anymore. This is also true of other jobs, but it seems very largely true in theatre. There is a level of dedication that people seem to have and that no matter how hard it gets they don’t back down… or they back down but work through it anyways. I think this says more, and I think it can be saying a different message for each person. The thing is, we just work through it and then we must forget about how bad it was or believe it can’t get worse and repeat the cycle. It makes me wonder what would happen if someone did just drive 100 miles. If someone did just leave. Would they find something better; would they be happier; would they achieve something they could never while working at wherever they are that makes them want to leave? What would happen?
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