Author: MAÔ

Thinking about Learning to say no, I think about when I was starting out as an actor. (Long side story, which I’m not getting into here – at least any time soon). 

But something I was listening to gave me the advice, “Always be working.” 

It didn’t matter if it was a volunteer role in an amateur production, or bit part on stage, or whatever! Just always be working.

And at the start of your career, it can be helpful (and also detrimental) to say yes to everything. Helpful because it can build up your network, bolster your reputation, and breed opportunities.

It can be detrimental, though, in that people may come to expect your extra effort or availability. They may see you later on refusing something, and maybe think that you’ve changed somehow.

A lot of it comes to balance.

Maybe it’s more learning to learn to say no, since I have generally opted instead to say yes. First of all, I like saying yes. I liked being asked to help – in whatever way I can – and therefore saying yes is a bit of a reward to me. Even if it may mean considerable effort, time, a lack of sleep, and numerous headaches to pull off whatever it is I’ve been asked to do.

And yet… At some point, you just can’t say yes. Not to everything. Not while maintaining a balance. Not while pursuing your own goals.

I’ve had to turn down a few opportunities recently while accepting others. Do I always understand how I gauge which I’ll agree to and which I’ll refuse? 

No. No I don’t. 

At that point, it’s important to go with your gut.

Well, how about that. October is upon us again. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know where the year has gone, but it’s flying by. 

I’ve always liked that October was busy for me. I was usually involved with some theatre production, the performances often in October. I’d attend Halloween Horror Nights pretty regularly. I usually seemed to have a job or gig.

It’s also a great time of year. Fall colors – not so much in Florida, but I knew the foliage was changing elsewhere, so that helped. Cooler temperatures coming in. The first of three holidays – Halloween. 

Now I’m in California, and I’ll be spending most of the month in Hawaii. So, no colored leaves…? 

Who knows?

It isn’t that writing is hard. Only that it’s so easy not to. Working on the computer, I can get lost in an email chain, a Twitter thread, or some random deep dive that the internet promises me will be fascinating. And it usually is.

But it’s the distraction that’s deadly. Deadly to creativity. 

I can’t say that you shouldn’t give yourself time to be distracted. 
But what I can say is, give yourself time to be creative as well. Time spent alone with just that creation – the one you’re working on. Because if you don’t give it time, it’ll never be created.

Change can be exciting. Change can be scary. It can be accepted, denied, or actively fought against. But change is inevitable, and the better we understand that, the more apt we are to succeed in the wake of things changing.

Currently, I find myself living sans routine. That’s both true and untrue. If taken as a whole, my days are pretty much – wake, gym, work, sleep. 

It’s the nitty gritty that is escaping me. With work hours shifting based on production needs, I sometimes go to the gym first thing in the morning. Other times, it’s as late as early-afternoon. Some days I skip completely, if I have to be there early or it’s a drive; or both. 

I don’t have much time to write, or, rather, I don’t use the time that I do have spending it on writing, or creating, or doing much at all that I usually feel is productive.

It’s been a long year, and the work aspect of it has left me with limited bandwidth. 

And I suppose that’s the struggle, yeah? Opting to make time for what’s important. Not just checking out and then showing up for your work day. But I still feel the need to revamp, design my current life situation just a bit better. Starting here.

Sometimes I just sit and write and I’m not really sure what’s coming out. 

Life is like that sometime. You just do and do and do, without any real clear goal or understanding. And in those moments, you’re likely hoping for an outcome. 

Maybe it’s enough to just keep going, though.

After twelve months in Los Angeles, I’m still discovering much. There is no shortcut to becoming permanent in a place – to making it home. It’s a process. It’s about the people, and the lifestyle, and how you feel.

I love it in LA. Much of my journey has been leading me here, and I’m happy that I was able to finally realize it.

That isn’t to say it hasn’t been without its challenges. But everything worthwhile may come with a setback or three. I suppose you can’t let it deter you. Just hold on, and have faith that you made the right decision.

Time is such a finite resource. You don’t always consider it, but it’s always there: moving along in the background, ticking down the seconds, watching each and every life move from start to finish.

And the world, ever-connected, now has means to keep us plugged in and engaged among numerous fields of interests – fashion, arts, science, technology, politics, etc. We build these bubbles around us, which pulls in information we may find useful, and filters out that which the algorithm intuits we wouldn’t use anyway. 

Ever-connected, yet more disparate.

And still, how can we keep up with even everything we want to see? Everything we want to experience?

The fact is, we can’t. There just isn’t enough time. The best we can do is stay present, experience each moment, and attempt to live life with an authenticity that will not leave us disappointed in our final moments.

In a way that can make sense to those who think about it, doing something creative will lead to even more creative output. Cleaning a small area of the house will lead to a determination to clean more. Volunteering your time does tend to make you want to volunteer more.

It isn’t till you start doing something, realizing it fills a need, that you set intentions to do more of it. 

The key, then, is to start.