As you might have guessed from my infrequent postings here, I have been juggling a lot of theater-related commitments lately. During the month of September, I found myself scattered in at least four directions: completing my SF Olympians Festival scripts, writing for the Fringe Festival newsletter, conducting email interviews for the Bay One-Acts, and participating in Theater Bay Area's ATLAS program for playwrights.
And that doesn't even include other things like switching to a new team at work, having my parents visit last weekend, trying to maintain a semblance of sanity and a personal life... And I'd dared to hope that October would be less busy than September, but honestly, this month doesn't show any signs of letting up.
Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that I wrote my Theater Pub column this week about being overscheduled. (Oh yes! Because I'm still writing for that venue every other week, too!)
More specifically, I wrote about how it's possible to be overscheduled and still be drifting through life. How sometimes we overschedule ourselves in order to avoid confronting our fears and doubts -- we keep busy, and do what other people tell us to do, because that's easier than making decisions for ourselves. It's really, really scary to say "I want this and I'm going to fight like hell to get it," because then there's a chance you might not get it... it's easier to just take the opportunities that are handed to you, feeling like you ought to be grateful for them. That, in fact, it would be selfish to strike out on your own, or to try to cut back on the number of things you're trying to accomplish at any given time.
Had I googled "drifting through life" before I wrote this column, I probably would have tried to work in a quotation or citation of Gretchen Rubin's (The Happiness Project) post about drift—she, too, makes the point that even if you seem to be working really hard or busy all the time, you can still be drifting.
In the meantime, I'm going to try not to let October kick my butt—and within the next three weeks, I'm going to come up with a five-year plan that, I hope, will get me back on course and make me feel less scattered.
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