Taking the next step

It has been a month since my last blog. Things have been turning a corner with a lot happening. It has made it very hard for me to focus my thoughts on a blog post. So here I am now, trying to formulate my thoughts in to something that I can write about.

I have been directing/performing in a rather intensely funny piece of dinner theatre. The intention had been for me to only direct, and in the realm of theatre, initial intentions are often dismissed as circumstances change. (More details here “A Finger in the Dyke”)

Then I am offered an incredible opportunity. A career change that would see me moving away from the job that simply pays my bills to the job that is likely to reward my heart (as well as pay the bills.) It is a frightening thing to consider leaving a long-term, steady, and secure job, for one which pays based on performance. Some people can do brilliantly in these sorts of jobs. The challenge charges them with zeal. For me, these sales type roles have always filled me with dread, but then I was looking at sales roles in areas where I really didn’t have much of an interest. I had never before contemplated Selling Entertainment.

And that is the thing isn’t it? Doing what you love vs doing whatever because it pays. One is work, the other is … something else.

In physics, a force is said to do work when it acts on a body…

Work is something which acts on you, not for you or with you, and it often seems to be working against you. When I started around 2003, I had strong motivations for the job. After a while, I was able to find some measure of joy in the role, and for a while, there was no work, only progress. Then, after a while, two things evolved;

1. the job was changing, moving away from the creative problem solving to a more maintenance and technical role;
2. my external passions, that I had been enjoying as a hobby, had started to take a new and interesting direction.

My ability to focus on my job had been compromised. As a result, it became an effort to make myself do what was expected. The goals of the job were different to my desires. Truth be told, they had always been different, and now the gap between was a chasm. The job had become work because its needs, the needs of the job, were driving me, not me driving the job. The things that drive me from within, my dreams and passions, were not conducive to the job.

This is the reality that people are faced with everyday. This is conflict, or drama, at a very personal level. Movies like Falling Down experiment with this concept, making us wonder, what would it take for me to crack? We are a society of people doing work because… It is something we can all relate to, which is why it is a common theme in plays and films. Someone stuck in a dead-end job, punching cards, dreaming of a different life… And then the dream happens, for good or bad.

So while I am nervously excited about my new options and direction, I can also appreciate the drama that built up to it, and carries it.