Bored Of Being Bored.

 Bored of being bored.


I went to bed last night looking at my schedule for the next day:


A very busy 24 hours was planned out. Justin and I need to know that at least one of us can be with the baby at all times (duh; parenting), so we put everything in our shared calendar.  Each event in my calendar is color coded. Teaching and coaching is orange. Acting work is red. Baby stuff is yellow. Social life is purple etc etc etc. At a glance, my rainbow calendar looks as gay as every corporation during pride month.


I was set to wake up at 7am. However our dog had other plans and needed to pee at 5.50am. So I woke up and brought him downstairs and let him into the yard and I looked at the clock and thought “I have just been gifted an extra hour of awake time”. So I didn’t go back to bed. As I type this, I am sitting on the sofa, next to the dog who of course, went back to sleep. I began reading a book that contains a quote from Marianne Williamson, which reads:


‘Children aren’t bored when they wake up in the morning, because they don’t know what’s going to happen to them that day. Adults are bored because we THINK we do’


This inspired me - obviously enough to write about it. I had convinced myself last night by looking at my calendar - my list of events - that I knew how my day was going to go. But with the reading of Marianne’s phrase, I realized that the dog had already taken care of shaking things up by getting my butt out of bed an hour early. I know what I need to accomplish today but I don’t know HOW those things are going to happen. So all of a sudden, a potentially ‘boring’ regular day is allowed to be considered exciting…..because I choose to view it that way. 


Today I will be rehearsing some audition material - which I’m now excited to do instead of just surviving it. I will be coaching five separate students and I can’t wait to see how I can support them and their growth. I will be noting a performance of The Play That Goes Wrong - a show which I have LITERALLY seen more than 200 times and acted in more than 600 times - and I am more excited than I have been in a long while to see HOW the story will be told today.


My perspective was shifted for the whole day in the reading of one phrase and if that isn’t a metaphor in and of itself, I don’t know what is. 


I encourage each of you reading this to stay open to the idea that your day can BE anything at all, even if you know that you’re going to DO. 


A scene, monologue, song or dance can BE anything at all, even though you know what you’re going to do: say the scripted lines, sing the composed melody, dance the choreographed movements. You don’t know HOW these things will happen so shift your perspective and stay open. 


May each routine day be as adventurous for you as it will be for every child who genuinely has no clue what the day holds……. And on that note, I need to wake up my baby girl because, GOSH DARN IT SAYS SO IN MY CALENDAR! -  I can’t wait. 


Keep up the great work 


Mark


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