A dark night, turned bright

I was feeling hopeless. Why was I doing stand up comedy? No one thinks I am funny. I never get booked. These thoughts were stirring in my mind in a frenzy. I wasn’t conscious and I was suffering.  Somehow, I put myself in this horrible state of mind. I had been doing the things to improve and I had new habits of productivity that seemed to work.  I had become identified with the work I was doing. I was expecting results and I didn’t get what I thought should happen. I had forgotten the joy that comes from immersing myself into an activity that I love to do for the sheer fun of it. My state of mind was out of control. I thought I should just quit this. There is no point in continuing on this way. I wanted to cry and just hide away.

I wish I could say that I became aware of my self-hatred and my suffering went away right then, but it didn’t. I was awake for most of the night with my head spinning with all the negativity I could summon. I eventually fell asleep. I know this because I was awakened by the alarm. I was feeling pretty clear now and started thinking about what had happened last night. I am learning enough of myself that I am able to discern why I do the things I do. I believe that just paying attention to why, has helped me tremendously to become conscious. Besides it is a process, so sometimes it trial and error..

I decided that I did like doing stand up comedy, a lot. It was so much fun to do when I didn’t worry about how it was going to turn out. I love writing jokes and laughing while I work them out. It is fun to try them out on friends and family. Telling them onstage is wonderful too, it’s the best part. Then you can see right away how your sense of humor corresponds with the audience. It is instant feedback. With all this good stuff, why was I suffering? I wanted people to see how important this was to me. I wanted to be recognized as a comedian and get booked in clubs. These were egotistical expectations, that could never be placated.

I thought about these things for a while. I was tired of suffering and I had enough awareness to realize that I was causing my pain. I felt that I could live with letting go of ever being famous or loved for doing stand up. So I consciously decided to drop any expectations of receiving anything from the act of doing stand up. I will no longer let judgement distract me from the art of doing my thing.

This judgement thing is a double edged sword. Sure the weight of others judgements on me takes away from the focus of doing, but so does my judgement of others. I will be angry because the guy next to me is living my dream. I want to be living the dream not him. Indulging in this type of thinking is such a waste of valuable energy. Letting go of this and just allowing life to flow has freed me up in a big way, I actually feel lighter, physically. I like that.

It’s pretty funny how you get tested right away, when you are making new distinctions in life. I was no longer suffering in regards to doing stand up. It felt good to go do a set with absolutely no expectation. I was going to try and be funny and that was it. And I was! I started having great sets. Then I was told that a set I had recorded last summer was going to drop on a PBS show. I was pretty excited about that. Not a day later, I was messaged by a friend who said they heard me on the Comedy Radio Station in Denver. My excitement was building pretty quick. I am getting booked and it is great! Still, I have to be conscious that these very things could cause me suffering down the line. Stick to my path and do my best with no egotistical expectations.

I am not saying don’t make plans. There is expectation in that. To say I expect to profit from this project is a strong goal. There will be a measurable outcome. Those expectations help to create action that will achieve the desired result. Still it is a joy to give completely of yourself in action. That is where my fulfillment is. Action.

What is a path with heart?

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Being a human being means that at some moment in the future, I am going to expire. That means, I am going to die. We all are. If you knew you were going to die today, what would you do with the rest of your time? It is a good question to ponder. The outcome is going to be the same regardless of what you do. I would like to believe that I would get busy doing the thing that makes me excited and happy to be alive. For me, that would be putting on a live comedy show.

It could bomb, or it could just crush the room and magic happens. There is absolutely no chance of experiencing magic if I didn't do the show. My path with heart has magic in it. A magical possibility is a wonderful way to spend my lasts moments.

Hopefully I am going to be around for a good while. I just like to remind myself of whats important to me. I will follow a path with heart if I think about my mortality. No one knows when our hour of death will arrive. We should be ever vigilant to what makes us feel fulfilled. Do something that gives you that feeling. Pride in a job well done is fulfillment. Our affinity towards something may seem weird to others, but if it excites your being, that excitement is the key towards the direction you should take. Fear and doubt are enemies to attaining a magical life. A life of doing the things that spark your passion and make you excited to wake up each day ready.

Just because you are following a path with heart, life doesn't automatically become easy. Hardly, the challenges at first come from your own mind and body rebelling. Your thoughts try to tell you to take it easy. There is plenty of time. The lie you start to tell to yourself when you are marching down your path. Remember this, it is easier not to be great. When I heard that for the first time it had a profound effect on me. If someone (or even myself) says to take it easy, I feel like to do that will rob me of any greatness, I may have achieved.

Even your family and friends will sometimes be against the idea of fulfillment. Why should you give of yourself at such a high standard? No one else is. That is not a true statement and anyone that would say that is suffering from their own limiting beliefs. I actually asked a good friend of mine why he held his standards so high? He told me, you never know what is going to be the reason for success, so why not stack the deck. If my friend had not been as successful in his passion as he was then his statement would not have carried so much weight. I watched him go from bankrupt to abundantly fulfilled. I watched him authentically living his passion and to me his life was magical.

The path is what is important. The process of doing. We are growing and becoming what we dreamed of becoming. Even if the outcome is failure in the eyes of onlookers, the path itself is what makes us feel fulfilled. Will it matter in the end?