131. Juilliard Drama Audition 2012: Part Four (Pantomime With Words)

(This is the fourth post relating my experience at Juilliard Drama Auditions 2012. Click here for Part One. Click here for Part Two. Click here for Part Three.)

Part Four: Pantomime With Words

I stared at the door, waiting for it to open. It's was finally my turn! I’m the last person selected to audition for the entire faculty of Juilliard Drama today. YIKES!!!

Breathe.

Excitement. Fear. Joy.

Mind racing with a million thoughts and  a million outcomes.

Breathe.

"All you‘ve got to do is go in there and close-up the (imaginary) restaurant, Virginia." I thought to myself.

"You’ve worked in this place for years and scrubbed these tables a million times, right? You are completely comfortable here. This is YOUR space. You know what you’ve got to do. It’s been a looooong day and you can go home and relax as soon as the restaurant is clean.

That’s all. Just clean the restaurant.

Clear the tables. Wipe them down. Clean the menus. Sweep. Grab your stuff. Lock the door. Done.

Simple. Easy.

No need to control anything. No need to be a fancy actor. No need to impress anybody.

The words of the monologue will be there for you. You know them. Trust yourself.

And if you get distracted and forget… Just make it up. Who cares!? You know where you are and who you are and the story you’re telling. That’s all you need.

So go clean the f*%ing restaurant and get it done!"

As I was ushered into the room I was greeted by the gentle hum of laughter and conversation. The room was a-buzz with energy and the faculty clearly seemed to be having a good time together. James Houghton took the lead (naturally) and asked me what play my piece was from. I told him and he asked me to give him a second to write it down.

As he wrote, I scanned around the room, turning on my heels...taking in the acting space…figuring out mentally where the door was…and the kitchen…the counter…the stools…the 6 tables and 12 chairs (all imaginary…but very clearly defined in my head). It was as if I was creating a movie in my head...with chairs and tables coalescing from the ether and into my reality. God…Acting is such a weird job.

Anyway, I woke from my conjuring trance and looked back at Jim Houghton, who was staring back at me intently.

“Oh! You ready?” I said.

“Yes.” He said.

That was my cue. GO!

I began to move with purpose walking stage right toward the “door” while removing my glasses, my zip-up jacket and putting my hair up with a hair-tie. I had work to do…Don’t want to deal with hair in my eyes.

Then I walked across the room to the “kitchen” to grab my tray. I imagined that the person I was speaking to was sitting on a stool at the counter,...my friend Josh to be exact, who had stopped by the restaurant to hang-out and watch me close. He's telling me to quit this crappy job...and I'm explaining to him why I can't and why I won't and how I see a greater purpose in my work...even in the very un-glamorous job of waitressing. That I want to be good at everything I do...And that my job here touches people's lives...and that has value.

So as I began to clear the tables, I was speaking to him…But I wasn’t thinking about speaking to him…I was thinking about clearing the table without breaking things. And then I grabbed an imaginary rag and spray bottle filled with cleaning fluid and sprayed down the first table and wiped it off. Then I continued with this process for the rest of the six tables…still talking…managing to remember my lines…turning away from the audience sometimes…oblivious to their presence (as much as possible). Then I threw the spray bottle in a cabinet and pulled up a real chair to imaginary table #1. I grabbed a stack of my imaginary menus and sat down to wipe them clean. Some of them I’d clean vigorously and some slowly or sometimes I’d stop and check in with my imaginary Josh…to make sure he was still listening to me… which he was. It all depended on what I was saying in the moment and how that made me feel.

Then I realized I was about to run out of words. So I thought, f*%k the sweeping. There's no time for it now. I gotta get outta this place. I’ll do it before I open tomorrow. Then I put away my imaginary menus and walked back across the room toward the door to grab my jacket and my glasses. I scanned the room to make sure that everything was done and I hadn’t forgotten anything. I zipped up my jacket, said the last line and turned away as if to leave.

Of course, in reality I was just standing in a huge studio staring at a wall. LOL! Again…Acting is such a weird job.

I took a moment to breathe and let the imaginary world I had created fade away gently behind me…for both myself and my audience.

That was my pantomime with words.

How did I feel about it? I really don’t know!!! I was just doing it…So I don’t know if it was any “good” or not…But one thing I DO know for sure…that imaginary restaurant is CLEAN. ;-p

Then I turned back around, smiled gently and slowly walked back to the center of the room.

Then Jim asked me what I would like to sing. I said, “Make Someone Happy…Oh, Richard…Would you like me to do the regular version or the version with the adjustment?”

Richard smiled at me and said, “Oh, just sing the song.”

"Oh, right...sorry. Sure. Okay."

So I did.

Then the room got quiet after I had finished and Jim leaned forward and asked me THE QUESTION…

“So, why grad school, Virginia?”

Oh, my God in heaven. How to even BEGIN?

My heart began to pound all the way in my toes...

Singing ain't scary...Confessing to an entire panel of people that have the ability to make this girl's grad-school acceptance DREAMS come true...NOW THAT'S SCARY.

The passion of all these years of trying and dreaming and hoping and trying again and hoping and failing and trying AGAIN…all welled up in my eyes.

“I want to be a part of this community,” I said, as I fought to keep my composure. I was NOT going to lose my s#%t now. OH, HELL NO. I have worked tooooo hard at this to come off like a blubbering fool!

I continued to speak...Gathering momentum...Trying to breathe and stay focused... “I felt such a connection to this place from the first time I took a tour and met Kathy and then every time I’ve visited here since…or seen a show...I feel it more and more.” And then I went on and on about the camaraderie amongst the faculty and the respect and care they have for the students and my desire to invest in myself with this training and building a foundation for a life-long career and I how much I love this…"

And so on and so on. Ya-da, Ya-da.

Confession: I have no idea WHAT I said, actually. It was really a blur. But I meant it all with every piece of my heart...And the above is my best estimation of what I think I probably said (for posterity’s sake.)

Jim thanked me for my audition. I thanked him and the rest of the faculty and walked out the door and back into the quiet of the hallway. 

It was done. I had survived my pantomime with the faculty of Juilliard.

I sat down in a chair. Grabbed onto the edge of the seat for support. Looked up to the ceiling. And I let myself cry.

It felt good, actually...good to cry. It's what I needed to do.

Austin, one of the current grad students, gently sat down next to me and told me about one of the times he’d had a breakdown in class and how it’s all par-for-the-course in the Juilliard experience. He made me smile. It was comforting.

I could breathe again.

Enough of the angst, Wilcox...Now it’s time for games!

I wiped away my tears, ran up the stairs and removed my shoes and socks, leaving them in my bag.

I found Toby and gave him a HUGE hug and said. "Thank you. Your hug gave me the love to get through that audition. You gave me your energy. I could feel it. Thank you. That was awesome."

He grinned at me. I grinned back.

We joined up with the rest of our group as we all made our way back down the stairs and into the audition room again with the faculty.

The next hour or so was sooooo much fun. We did so many fun exercises/activities/games together. I won’t bore you with all the details, but lets just say...it was just like being a kid again and playing pretend....Only, this time, I was playing pretend with a room full of the BEST pretenders you’ve ever played with. Everyone’s imaginations were bouncing off the walls!!! It was fantastic to behold and to participate in. There was excitement in the air. It was electric! Laughter one moment, silence the next, cheers and then tears.

Ahhhh, actors...we are a unique breed. We are sensitive and yet, bold. We express our way of experiencing the world passionately and (ideally) unapologetically...in public.

After we we’re all done running around and playing fun games, exhaustion started to set in. We all tromped back up-stairs and collapsed in the waiting area...just bodies laying on the floor, slouching on the seats and benches...It’s about 9pm at this point... And I’ve been up since 6am...and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. So, everyone’s a bit punchy, for sure.

Then Kathy appears, clipboard in hand. “Okay, everyone. Hope you had fun in there!”

We all responded with cheers and comments of joy and laughter.

Kathy continued, “Wonderful! I had so much fun watching you all working and playing in there. Thank you for that...Now, I know it’s getting late and you must be feeling the length of the day by now. However, we’re going to as some of you to stay and interview, if you are up for it. You’re all under consideration for the final callback weekend. So if you’re asked to stay for an interview tonight or not, it doesn’t “mean anything” either way, just know that. And we may be contacting you at a later date for a phone or Skype interview, if we feel that’s necessary, okay? Now, I’m going to call you over one-by-one to discuss with each of you individually.”

I love Kathy. She is one of the most genuinely warm-hearted human beings alive. Juilliard is soooooo lucky to have her.

So she started calling each of us over to her, alphabetically from the top of the list. Ha! You know what that means? I’m last.

Patience is a virtue and having a “W” name allows me to practice it often.

After a few moments of checking my phone and biting my cuticles and checking my phone again and looking around to see if people were getting ready to leave or settling-in for more waiting...I hear Kathy’s voice above the mild chatter in the room...

“Virginia?”

My turn. ~gulp~

I get up from the floor where I’ve been sitting and trot over to Kathy Hood. Holding my breath and smiling...hoping that I would be asked to stay, but trying hard not to expect anything more than the already ammmmmazing experience that I’ve had.

I’m standing with Kathy, away from all of the others. She looks down at her clipboard for a second and then back at me...



Loves,
V



P.S. Will Virginia be asked to stay for an interview? What will tomorrow's post be all about?

...Stay tuned...I hope you will enjoy PART FIVE, the final chapter in my Juilliard Drama audition tale.

47. Learn On The Job, Get Paid, Feel Good

“To enjoy now, there was something… I was going to have to master: my dread of criticism. Too much concern about whether I was getting praise or blame, too much anticipatory anxiety about what my detractors would say – those kinds of fears spoiled my pleasure in my work and, what’s more, probably weakened by work.” – Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project 

When you get a new job and you’re learning how to do it…whether you are making lattes at Starbucks, rehearsing new dance numbers or writing complex reports… nobody expects you to do it perfectly your first day on the job.  There’s always a learning-curve. You learn as you go and improve your skills as time goes on… and the best part is… you’ve already got the job and you're getting PAID for that learning.

You were hired because they see that you have the skills to be able to LEARN how to do the specific tasks required for the job. Every job requires learning new things... And the process of getting really good at anything takes TIME, but … as long as you keep at it… you will improve. True story.

Once you've accomplished a certain amount of mastery of those new skills... you can look back on your first rocky days at a new job and laugh (hopefully), knowing that you could have probably cut yourself a little bit more slack and not stressed yourself out about it so much. 

Everybody's been the newbie and hopefully your co-workers and employers will have compassion for you as you become a master of your new job.

RE: Men & Women

I read a study earlier this year (wish I could cite it directly, but I couldn’t find it) which discussed the different ways that men and women approach the concept of “learning on the job.” 

The study showed that the majority of MEN felt no qualms what-so-ever about the idea of getting paid to learn how to do a new job. In other words, they didn’t stress-out about the fact that they had just gotten hired to do a job that they essentially didn’t know how to do yet. They felt confident in the fact that they would be able to learn it over time and felt that getting paid during this process was due compensation for their efforts.

WOMEN, however, had a different experience on the whole. Many of them expressed high levels of anxiety at not knowing how to expertly execute all the duties of their new jobs from day one, and felt a sort-of guilt at being paid to do something they were still learning how to do.

I thought this was so strange! I had never considered that new-job-stress could actually have some gender associations. Still... every human being is different, so these kinds of studies must be taken with a grain-of-salt. But it certainly made me think and reflect on my own expectations for myself when starting up any new project.

I’d like to be totally okay with getting paid to learn. You want to pay me to get good at doing something? Okay. No prob. I'm on it!

I mean, if you are lucky enough to have the opportunity to get paid training at your job... take it!!! That's such a gift! Your employers are investing in you… teaching you new skills… for their own benefit (of course), but these new skills will benefit you as well because you can apply them in future job situations or in your life in general. And you can always learn about yourself in the process... in ANY process. So really it's a win/win for everyone.

And as someone who spent many, many years and many, many student loans… paying my way through classes, so that I could learn things… the whole concept of "learning on the job" and getting PAID is pretty freakin’ awesome.

Re: Acting

Sooo, when it comes to acting, learning on the job is the NORM. Even the BEST actors in the business are constantly learning new skills for their roles. 

In a previous post, I discussed how much l learned from attending the alumni talkback sessions at the callback weekend at NYU. I wanted to share with you one specific conversation that helped to shift my mindset about learning on the job...

After the Q&A was over I walked up to Billy Crudup, an NYU alum, and asked him what his name was again? HA! (I knew I had seen him in a bunch of stuff, but honestly had no idea what a well-known actor he was.)

Me = Ridiculous

He smiled and said, "Billy." I said, "I'm Virginia. Nice to meet you... I was just wondering how you feel that your training at NYU prepared you for a film career and dealing with the unique skills required for on-camera work?" 

(I asked this question because, in all the three years of training at NYU, on-camera training only happens in your third year. It is not a program that has a great focus on on-camera acting, but sooooo many of the alumni have gone on to great success in that medium. So I was trying  to understand where the connection was between the training at NYU and what I was seeing on the big and small screens.)

Billy’s answer was, of course, brilliant and gracious. He smiled and said that at NYU he had learned all the essential skills that an actor needs to have to prepare for ANY kind of a role in ANY medium, but most importantly, NYU taught him to just say “YES.” Meaning… that he would "go for it"… do whatever was required for the role… whether he “knew how” to do it or not or “felt prepared” to do it or not. He’d just DO IT. He felt confident enough from his training at NYU that he could LEARN ON THE JOB how to be a skillful film actor. 

And he is.

At NYU he established a strong foundation of acting training, practice and confidence and used it to help build a solid film career. 

Inspiring!!!! 

As he stood there discussing this early part of his career with me, I could see that he saw great humor in many of his early foibles on-camera and had clearly learned not to take himself too seriously somewhere along the way as well. Adorable. 

He is a kind and generous human being and I will always be grateful for him taking the time out of his busy schedule to show up at that alumni talk-back and share his experience with potential students. Just awesome.

In conclusion, it all comes back to the freedom from anxiety that being okay with “not knowing” provides... Being able to just say YES and trust that all that you will discover everything you will need to know in time. 

What a stress-free, suffering-free existence we’d all have if we could just trust that all is well and everything will work out fine!?

:-)

Or as Jack Plotnick affirms for himself when walking into an audition, “I am going to take it from where I am.” Because where I am right now is the perfect place to begin.

Billy began where he was... trained at NYU... learned on the job... and now he's dancing with Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love.

Sooo, I hope we can all take Billy’s lead, here… and feel GOOD about learning on the job!

Begin. Feel good. Learn. Feel good. Get better. Feel good. Get paid. Feel good. Learn more. Feel good...

You see where I am going with this?...

Now go!

Loves,

V

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful after all." - Michelanglo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect & poet (1475 - 1564)

  

39. Recap – 2011 – NYU Grad Acting Auditions

NYU

Year 2: MFA Auditions & Waitlist

"Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” 

– Mary Tyler Moore 

My experience auditioning:

After my AMAZING experience at auditions and callbacks at NYU my first year, I had both high-hopes and great fears for Year 2 auditions. My worst nightmare was that I wouldn’t make it through the first cut and wouldn’t get the opportunity to audition again for Janet Zarish and Mark Wing-Davy, who had both gotten to know me a bit during the callback weekend from the year before.

That morning at NYU, my first-round audition was for Victor Pappas, whom I had never met. (I believe he was on sabbatical the previous year.) What a joyful spirit! He welcomed me into the room with a bright, genuine smile. I liked him instantly. And that calmed my nerves and made me super excited to share the monologues I had been working on for months in preparation for this very moment.

It felt so good to get up there and say the words and feel the feelings... Doin' the acting thang.

I had been spending most of my year sitting in an office, making money to pay off my credit card/student loan debt. I had set this as a personal goal for the year, so that I could get into grad school with less of a debt burden. Money stress had become a huge issue for me. Scarcity thinking had been ruling my life in a really negative way and had been sapping my creative energies for YEARS. Now that I was aware of it, I had made every effort to get that debt-burden GONE, which resulted in a feeling of lightness and freedom in ALLLL areas of my life.

So getting up and doing my monologues for Victor felt like a two-fold joy…
1. Getting to do something that I love to do…  AND...
2. Knowing that by taking a break from acting and by NOT doing it for a while, I was enabling myself to appreciate it more deeply and with greater sense of freedom from financial stress.

After auditioning for Victor, I walked out of the room thinking… “Well, even if that’s all I get to do today, it was worth it. I had FUN and it felt like a successful audition to me, no matter what the outcome.” And I believed it too.

“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” 

– Dale Carnegie

In a little while, Jonathon Ward came out to the waiting area with a stack of headshot/resumes in-hand. He read off the names one by one…

My heart = pounding in my chest... Unfamiliar names ringing in my ears, as Jonathon breathed each word and then I heard…  Virginia Wilcox.

Ahhhhhhh!!!! That’s my name! He called me!

I made the first cut. Whew! I would get to see Mark and Janet again! YES!!!! Sweet joy!!!!

When it was my turn to go in for the second-round that same day, I practically bounced into the room to see Mark and Janet. I felt like I was coming home to old friends. I greeted them with a grin and a wave of familiarity... and I was met with looks varying from vague recognition to complete blankness… Yikes!

In my head:
Expectation adjustment NEEDED!!! I had hoped that they would remember me, but if they did,… oh, boy,… they sure weren’t letting on! Oh, dear... I thought I was more memorable than that, but apparently not. LOL! Shake it off, Wilcox… Give them a chance to remember you from now on...

Mark looked at my list of four monologues and asked me to present my non-Shakespeare classical (very dark/dramatic) and my dramatic contemporary.

Drama + Drama = HEAVY.

And who wants to spend 3 years with someone who has no sense of humor? Not me... and probably not them.

I blinked. I blinked again. What to do now? I knew I was about to serve up a depression cocktail. He didn’t choose anything that had any lightness to it. I wanted to say something, to warn him, but I wasn’t courageous enough to speak up for myself.

In my head:
Just do it, Wilcox. If he wants to see some comedy, he’ll ask you for a third piece. It’s gonna be fine. Let it go... But I didn't/couldn't.

So I went to start my classical piece… and I couldn’t think of the first line… and I couldn’t think of it… and I couldn’t think of it...

I just stood there. Staring at the floor. My brain racing with a million thoughts except for the one that would really help me to be thinking in this moment… namely: MY FIRST F*@ING LINE. Then after another interminable eternity I “calmly” said to Mark and Janet, “I’m sorry. Just give me a second.” And I turned upstage and I breathed. Thinking… “It will come to you, Wilcox. Breathe. Let it come. Breathe.”…. And, thank the dear lord… it finally came to me.

Jeeeeesus that scared the S*%t out of me though… forgetting the words… losing focus… and I was totally out-of-body for the rest of the audition. Words were spoken but it was someone else speaking them. I was residing on the ceiling staring down at myself with a constant awareness of my complete and utter terror.

After I was done with my two uber-dramatic pieces… You could cut the angst in the room with a knife. And Janet broke the silence with… “Ah-hem… Virginia, would you like to sing for us?”

I sighed a small sigh of relief and smiled and said, “Sure! I’ll be singing… Get Happy.”

HA! And they laughed. Which was nice. Cut some of the tension, at least. And no third monologue was mentioned.

I sang my little ditty and dutifully dragged myself out the door… wondering all the while…
1. Where, along the way, had I lost my bounce? …and…
2. How had I managed to give all my power away? …and…
3. Why did I feel like I had totally lost control of myself during that audition?

A few minutes later, after the next hopeful applicant had gone in to the audition room, the monitor in the waiting area smiled and said…“That’s all we need to see today, Virginia. You’re free to go home. Thank you.”

Me: “Oh, okay… (all my blood dropped into my toes and my face went completely white)… Thanks... (gulp… hold it together… hold it together). Best of luck with the rest of the auditions today… (the best smile I could muster) … Bye-bye."

...Bye-bye, NYU, bye-bye...

I spent months analyzing it, for no good reason, really. I couldn’t go back and change anything. All I could do was move forward. But I was having a tough time figuring out what I was supposed to have learned from this experience.

The only thing that I could come up with as a major regret… is not speaking up for myself when Mark asked me for my two dramatic pieces… It would have made ME feel better to have said something like, “Mark, just wanted to let you know that you’ve chosen two dramatic pieces, which I am more than HAPPY to do for you. Just wanted to let you know, in case you want to see something a little lighter, as a contrast.” In which case, he may have still opted to go with his choices… or maybe he would have reconsidered and chosen a comedic piece… it really wouldn’t have mattered to me. Either way would have been fine. But, in retrospect, I would have felt more courageous and more in-control and more focused and prouder-of-myself in that situation, if I had followed my impulse and spoken up for myself in that moment… rather than blinking back my qualms and feeling like I was about to dutifully sacrifice myself to the drama gods. That only lead to me feeling super conflicted, getting distracted in my own head… and going up on my line… and losing confidence… and losing focus… and losing them… and, ultimately, disappointing myself.

By trying to be a "people-pleaser" and by stuffing my own internal impulse to speak up, I had succeeded in pleasing no one.

“Resiliency, I think is the KEY to success. The most successful people I know are so resilient. They’ve failed many times over. Whereas most people fail once or twice, and that’s it.” – Adam Gilbert, MyBodyTutor

Thank goodness I would be permitted to come back and try again next year!!! Do over!!!


My measure of success:

I did make the first cut… which felt like a great accomplishment.

Several weeks later, I received an email from Jonathon Ward informing me that I would not be invited to the callback weekend but that I was on the “waiting list.” Apparently they keep about 100 applicants on a waiting list, in the case that they are not able to find their 16-18 students from the 50 that are invited to the callback weekend. I was grateful to be included on the waiting list, but I knew that the likelihood of making it to this year’s class from the waiting list was very, very slim.

I would not be holding my breath.

Then, after a time, I received another email notifying me that they had chosen their MFA students for the year and they wished me best-of-luck in all my future endeavors.

:-(

Well, at least I had the courage to show up for the second time… and I had tried again. That was very important to me.

Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to happen yet. Whah-whah! What was supposed to happen… had happened. And as not-so-fun-and-awkward as that audition was for me, I survived to tell the tale.

“Whenever something doesn’t work out the way you thought it would, instead of thinking that something went wrong, see it as something that went unexpectedly well, but for reasons that are not yet apparent. Everything plays in your favor.” – Mike Dooley, Tut’s Universe

Learning and Resolutions for Year 3:

I wasn’t supposed to be at NYU yet. I had other stuff to learn/do elsewhere. And it has been a year of GROWTH… for which I am truly, truly grateful.

Good thing I'm such a prolific failer... otherwise this blog wouldn't exist. Hee, hee! And, last year, I sure didn't foresee becoming a "blogger." That never entered my mind. So that a cool and unexpected bi-product of failure. Ha!

"Laced throughout every day of your life are hidden highways of opportunity, invisible crossroads of time, and golden avenues for personal transformation that if only traveled upon would reveal the extraordinary, the sublime, and the unexpected." - Mike Dooley, Tut's Universe

When reflecting on my experiences preparing for grad school auditions, Year 1 and Year 2, I realized that the thing I disliked most about the process was my feeling of isolation. Actors are collaborative artists and I wanted to have a sense of community collaboration and support in my 3rd try for acceptance to grad school.


Cut to me setting up this blog. Cut to you subscribing. And here we are now… collaborating daily. Success!

“I still don’t get why people are so surprised that the turtle beat the rabbit over the long run. Consistent effort, no matter how small, sparks magic, fills sails, butters bread, turns tides, instills faith, summons friends, improves health, burns calories, creates abundance, yields clarity, builds courage, spins planets and rewrites destinies… No matter how small.” – Mike Dooley, Tut’s Universe

This year has ALREADY been a way better grad school audition prep experience for me than the last two years combined and I won’t even be auditioning until January! With this blog, it feels great to be making a small impact on the world in my own Virginia way... by staying focused on my dreams/goals... by posting daily about my creative process... and by connecting with friends who are pursuing their own dreams/goals and are using the blog as a means of inspiration on their journey's too!


It's all about grad school for me... but not at all about grad school... all at the same time. It could be anything that you aspire to be or do. All the same kinds of skills apply to any creative process of growth.


I digress.


Thanks for collaborating, folks. Hope that you’re finding some value in sharing this journey with me.


Year 3 auditions are going to be a whole new ball-game. Yale (3rd try). NYU (3rd try). Juilliard (1st try).


Wish me luck!


Who knows what will happen? But for now, I’m preparing… little by little, day by day, brick by brick, thought by thought, action by action. And as long as I am moving in the direction of making my dreams a reality… I am happy.


Life is good.


Wishing you all... a life-time of risk-taking, failure, learning, unfaltering determination and success,


Virginia

“Remember that we are all works in process, perfect in our progress and always moving towards our own personal growth and evolution.” 

– Lena Stevens, The Power Path

  P.S. Sorry for the late, late, late post. This one kinda took me allll day. Thanks for reading.

  

33. Don’t Go To The Hardware Store Looking For Oranges

“Get out of the habit of asking anyone for anything. Become self-reliant. The truth of the matter is nobody else has anything that you truly need.” – Kathryn Bild, Acting From A Spiritual Perspective

I live in a great little borough, east of Manhattan, called Queens. Astoria is my neighborhood. It’s one of these places that still has little “Mom and Pop” family-owned specialty stores. You buy fish at the fish market, meat at the meat market and bread at the corner bakery… that kind of thing. 

It’s great. You walk in the door at the hardware store. You know what you want… nails. It’s a hardware store. They’ve got TONS of nails. You get the size nails you need and you’re out the door, a happy satisfied customer. Easy.

Hypothetical situation …

Imagine what happens if you go to the hardware store expecting to find oranges... Well, sadly, you’re going to be disappointed, because the hardware store doesn’t carry oranges. And, in Astoria, the guy behind the counter will probably laugh, make fun of you in Greek, look at you like you’re slightly insane or possibly wonder if you're making some kind of innuendo when you ask him where he’s hiding the fruit. 

If you’re looking for actual oranges, go find a fruit stand. It will be a much more enjoyable and successful shopping experience for everyone.

In relationships... 

There are certain people that we know we can go to with certain needs in our emotional lives. I know that if I need a compassionate listening ear and some smart insight, I can call Haley and that’s what I’ll get. That’s just who she is with me. She cannot help but be herself. So I know I’m gonna go away from our conversation having benefited from Haley’s loving heart and unique point-of-view. Expectation met! (Thanks, H. Love you.)

I wish this was only a hypothetical situation…

What happens when you need a compassionate listening ear and some smart insight and you decide to take your vulnerable heart to a “friend” with a social skill-set that demonstrates neither compassion nor insight?Well, you’ll probably be frustrated and end up hurt. Or maybe you will blame that "compassionless-friend" for not being what you expected/wanted/needed them to be for you and end up angry. But why do we allow this to happen to ourselves?  I mean, who’s in-the-wrong here, really?

A hardware store is not a fruit stand and should not be expected to carry oranges any more than a fruit stand should be expected to sell power-tools. Therefore, “compassionless-friend” should not be expected to have compassion. 

Be smart about your emotional expectations. People are who they are.

Hardware store owners sell hardware. Fruit stand shopsmen sell fruit. That’s what they DO… It has nothing to do with trying to withhold anything from YOU. They just don’t have what you need. Accept that. Love them, but don’t expect them to make you feel good about who you are. That’s your job.

Don’t go to the hardware store looking for oranges.

Be smart with yo’ heart. Find a fruit stand.

Love,

Virginia

P.S. Confession… This is another fun lesson in life that I seem to need to learn over and over and over again... Hence the blog-post about it. These lessons can make for some funny stories though… In my life, moments of epiphany can come at the oddest times and involve things like quinoa salad and bbq sauce… but I think I’ll save that one for next time we’re hanging out at the bar. Order me a gin and tonic with a twist of lime… and we’ll swap some of our hard-learned secrets of adulthood.

“If something is not working, don’t take it personally. Examine the situation for lessons and ask how you can be more cooperative in order to shift things. Stay out of martyrdom as much as possible and always take a proactive position.” – Lena Stevens, The Power Path