Don’t Waste 40 Years on A-Holes
Entertainment news isn’t something I typically pay attention to, but the title of this article from People Magazine caught my attention last week: “Trisha Yearwood Says She Never Wrote Her Own Songs Because of 1 Thing a Man Said to Her at Age 19”
“Bless his heart,” indeed 😒
Country music star Trisha Yearwood waited almost 40 years to write an album of her own songs because of an off-handed negative comment she got from “some guy” when she was 19 years old.
Even though I don’t care much for country music, I think that’s absolutely tragic.
We’ve all experienced this—someone telling us what we are capable of, or what we’re good at, that limits our actual potential.
Why do we do this to people?
“That’s just not your forté…”
“Maybe you should focus on your strengths!”
In my family it was “You’re so smart—you’re just wasting your intelligence being an actor. Why don’t you go become a doctor or a lawyer?”
Ummmm…because I don’t want to, LINDA! (Names changed to protect me from bitchy relatives)
Surely my extended family was just trying to keep me from being impoverished like them, but it wasn’t helpful, and it just pushed me further away from those fields that I had no interest in.
Senior year, the guidance counselor tried to get me to take AP CALCULUS. I told her, “I’m going to be a theater major—I will NOT take AP Calc.” I was good at math, but the effort hurt my brain, and I hated it. I still don’t have a single regret about taking that extra English class instead. None, whatsoever.
I wanted to be an actor and a writer.
And I wasn’t good at acting yet.
Over the years, other people tried to discourage me from continuing to pursue acting. But anytime anyone said anything critical about it, the little thought popped into my brain: “I’ll show you!”
Our naysayers don’t deserve to have power over our dreams.
For the most part, I just didn’t listen to the naysayers at all.
But not everyone has that voice of oppositional defiance as a primary response to this kind of interaction, and it isn’t fair to expect people to have the confidence to stand up to people in positions of power over them—parents, teachers, or even some random 19-year-old guy who acts like he’s God’s gift to [insert-discipline-here]. Especially not women, who are socialized since birth to defer authority to others.
While I might have been on a single track regarding acting, depending on the situation, I don’t always have the fortitude to stand up for my ideas/beliefs/desires either. For example…
Years ago, I was in acting class, and I got brave enough to get up and mention in front of the class that I had a desire to try dreamwork (based on the work of Janet Sonenberg, a professor in MIT’s theatre department) as a tool to uncover greater creativity in acting.
Immediately, one of the two guys who had recently been auditing the class as non-actors (I think they were directors) audibly groaned and rolled his eyes.
It was about this subtle…
My acting teacher, ever observant, caught the reaction and asked the man “I take it you have feelings about this?” The guy went on to explain how he worked with the woman who’d written the book and he and “his colleagues” didn’t believe her technique worked. Nevermind that she’d used it with famous actors and had written a whole book about it. Nevermind that he hadn’t tried it himself.
No one in class volunteered to work with me and experiment with the technique, and instead of continuing to give it a go, I just let go of the dream of doing dreamwork right there.
I allowed a total stranger, with uncertain credentials, to have more power over my dream than I gave myself.
WHY????
I’m still mad about that one. Because what I should have done is said to myself “this man doesn’t know me or what I am capable of, and whether this is a success or not, I want to explore the possibilities.”
But like Trisha Yearwood had, I just let that man’s opinion be the truth.
Sometimes, we let the successes of others stop us too.
Sometimes we encounter others doing the thing that we want to do, and we tell ourselves the story that there’s only room for one person to be a success. We think “well, they’re good, and I’m bad, so there’s no point in trying.”
That’s absolute bullshit, by the way.
In 5th grade, Brenda T.’s won the 5th grade writing competition with her story about a purple panda (a story that my 10-year-old self found absolutely inane).
Actual footage of my temper tantrum after Brenda won
Was I upset that I didn’t win? Yes. Yes, I was.
If I’d let Brenda’s success stop me from writing, I’d never have gotten any better, and I wouldn’t be writing this now.
There’s room for you, me, and all of us to succeed, because we are all different.
I’ll bet you can remember times when someone else shut down your dream with an offhanded remark, and you just let it be the truth.
Or a time where someone else’s success made you feel like your efforts were futile.
Can you imagine how much more the artists we love (and the ones we don’t even know about) might have given to the world if no one ever told them they couldn’t do something? Or where people just did what they loved and didn’t stop to compare themselves with someone whose skill was more advanced?
Can you imagine how many of her self-written albums Trisha Yearwood might have sold if she’d have continued practicing writing for the past 40 YEARS? That’s a LOT of practice time she can never get back!
Mind you, I think Trisha has done just fine for herself, but I still think it’s sad that she had to experience 40 years of self-censorship.
Please consider this for yourself and anything that you are holding yourself back from doing because someone else shut you down.
Screw those people! Who cares what they think!
Has someone out there told you that you can’t do something? Told you that you’re no good? Said it isn’t going to work or insinuated that your time/energy/money/skill would be put to better use elsewhere?
THAT’S THEIR TRUTH—NOT YOURS
Your truth is:
“I’ll never get better at dancing if I stop.”
“I love acting, and I want to be brilliant at it”
“I’ll never be the best, but it takes time to be great.”
“Art brings me joy—it doesn’t really matter if I’m ‘good’ at it”
“The successes of others show me what is possible for me in my own life.”
“My energy, time, and money is best put towards the thing that lights me up, because I have the most motivation to make that thing work.”
I hope you will give more credence to the truth of what makes you come alive, and care less about other people’s opinions (or even your own opinion) of what you’re actually good at.
Because you deserve that 40 years of discovering what you are capable of and what you might give the world.
🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋🌈🦋
Quit wasting time—
Reclaim your power!
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