Shifting Perspective

As graduation and real life are rapidly approaching, the wheels in my head are turning at a furious pace. The questions are overwhelming; what am I going to do this summer, where am I going to work, who am I going to live with? Applications for jobs are completed and turned in daily. I've already begun auditioning for dance companies. And yet, when I take a moment to sit and think quietly and really evaluate where my life is going, the thoughts are different than I would have expected. A year ago, I knew I was going to Denver to try to get into a particular dance company. A month ago, I knew I was going to move into a big house with cheap rent in Monmouth. I am reminded of Men in Black; "Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the earth was flat and fifteen minutes ago you knew people were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
This is very much the way my frantic thoughts have taken me over the last several months. I have been taken through a smattering of ideas in regards to what is next. Some of these are brilliant, others mediocre. But the one thing I do know, is that my perspective is taking a definite shift away from what it used to be. As I mentioned, a year ago I was headed to a dance company in the distant land of Denver. However, after auditioning in Portland just this last weekend, I'm not so sure I know anymore. And I'm not so sure it matters either. I came to college to study dance to someday make it into a career. But the reality is that there are many, many dancers out there who far exceed my talent. Does this mean I can't dance? Of course not! But it does mean that I have come to reevaluate my expectations. So there are dancers who are better than me, so I may go to a thousand auditions before I ever get into a company. The most important thing is not whether I get paid to dance or even get to dance for free. That would be nice, but the most important thing is that I use my gifts and skills for the good of other people. I may have to pay to dance for the rest of my life and that is fine. It may not be part of my career, and that is also fine. Most people who graduate from college don't work in their field. And why would they? Our society functions on the assumption that a person will get a job at 25 and stay there for the next 30+ years. But people were not created with only one interest in mind. We were created with a broad range of interests to build upon and increase and it is simply unnatural to expect someone to get stuck doing one thing for the rest of their life. This is why retirement is so attractive, because we can finally give up the same humdrum thing we've been doing for the last 3 or 4 decades and begin to explore a variety of interests again.
The pressure to pick one thing to do forever comes very early and by the time someone is 16 they are expected to have decided. And yet most college graduates face the world with with a dumbfounded look wondering what the heck is next. I see no reason why I can't write and dance and take pictures and sing freelance and make coffee or tea drinks to pay the bills. I just hope I don't get stuck doing just one thing. Even if that one thing were going to be dance, I don't know if I'd be okay with that. I have a feeling that dance would lose the joy I have in it if it were paying the bills and that I would wish I were doing something else. Do what you love, definitely, but don't overdo it. Because people are meant to explore their varying interests and find many things at which to excel. I realize this makes me nigh unemployable... Oh well. So I'll work 3 minimum wage jobs. At least I will have diversity in my life.

Inviting Challenge

Often times I sit down to begin writing without anything specific in my mind to say. Fortunately, I have a profusion of thoughts and words ready to burst forth and so the invitation to state an idea is generally all that is needed for the thoughts to begin to flow from my head into my hands. And this is how the creation of a blog entry is begun... It is something like trust, hoping that the moment I finish one sentence, another will inevitably begin. Amazingly, this is exactly what seems to happen. It is, in some far fetched way, like life. Things don't start to happen until you start writing the first sentence. It seems to me that putting oneself out there is the most essential action a human can make. Otherwise, nothing will ever materialize but always remain mystical and far beyond reach, just as this blog is beginning to sound.
The distinction I am trying to make is that there is a difference between action and putting oneself out there, so to speak. Action implies always moving forward, always taking the next step, never staying in the same place for too long. While this is how the person at my core longs to act, jumping sporadically from one thing to the next so that I won't stay too long in one place, trying to keep myself from too much reflection, the person I am learning to be appreciates the latter, that is, putting myself out there. It does seem to be action based, as it is hard to get out there without acting. However, I hope to define this second attribute as more of a lifestyle rather than a way to avoid growing or being challenged. When one is in constant motion, one is not challenged as there is never enough time spent to get uncomfortable. But, in putting myself out there, I am inviting challenge and discomfort and saying quite plainly that I wish to grow. Putting myself out there includes risk, the risk of exposure, of not being met with the easy way out. This is the way I am learning to live my life, by treating others with ultimate kindness, regardless of my personal feelings or irritations. Rather than jumping noisily from one season of my life to the next, I am learning to live life on the edge, taking emotional risks on people, and putting myself out there for the good of my own growth and for others.