Goal Assessment. Warning, there is cursing.

I had set some goals for myself this tour and I think it is time to check in with them.

First, I had wanted to blog once I week.  And, eh, I haven’t strayed too too far from that.  Although it hasn’t always been once a week, it has honestly been more often than I expected.  It has also been messier and sometimes haphazard.  But my goal wasn’t to write a better blog, so let’s not focus on mere details.

I also swore to never check to see if my blades were dull until I started sliding around on the ice a whole bunch.  And yeah, I now pretty much wait until things feel really bad or my butt makes contact with the ice to consider getting my skates sharpened. 

My hand-standing goal seems to be coming along well. I can get into one on my first try, but I am still too scared to try it without the wall for balance. I think it’s time to confer with coach Jane about the next step.

As far as not crying on the job goes, I am proud to say that I was put to the test yesterday, and passed with flying colors.  Good thing my goal isn’t to “not act like a little baby at work” because that I would have failed at that miserably.

Also, I had stated that I wanted to find a balance between hanging out with people and spending time alone.  I think I’ve done a pretty good job at that.

But that leads me to my big super hard challenging goal, which is the not worrying about if people like me goal.  That one is driving me nuts.

We are at the half-way point in tour and it is this point that turns everyone crazy, myself included.

The lack of balance between this life and any other life you’d like to have co-exist makes you forget who you were before this tour train left the station.  You kind of forget what makes you a whole person, and instead you become a weird imitation of yourself, who wears entirely too much make-up.

For me, my crazy manifests in this over-analyzed concern of what others think about me.  I know! So self-centered!  There is about one person here who probably truly doesn’t like me, other people who may not like me for no good reason, and a WHOLE BUNCH of people who don’t ever think about me.

And I have an experiment for you.  Find one person in your daily life and decide that they don’t like you.  Then watch what happens.

Any silence between you and that person means something.  

If that person does or doesn’t make eye contact with you in the hall means something.

And if that person does or doesn’t sit next to you to eat breakfast or ride the bus means something.

And all this meaning, which was made up in your head, adds up to one big fake concern.

And this is how I make myself crazy.  

Luckily, this year, I understand that this happens.  I become crazy; it is par for the course.  But I also get that while I turn crazy, I also have my sanity, which I know doesn’t make a lot of sense, but hold on...

You see, you have two different selves working at once. Your emotional self is the one that turns crazy, like would happen in any good reality TV show, but your rational self acknowledges that this is happening and tries its best to keep the crazy in check.  It says, “Hey buddy, be cool.  No need for nonsense.”

It reminds me of my favorite moment in the “Winnebago Man” youtude video (a video of a man clearly frustrated while taping some promo stuff at work.)  

Jack Rebney is basically cursing the entire video, but offers this gem of a line while doing it:

“Listen, I gotta give a clue here now.  I don’t want anymore bullshit anytime during the day, from anyone, and that includes me.”

Which also reminds me of how one of our cast members said today, “I need to put myself in a time out.” 

Ahhhhh. At least we can recognize when we start going down this foolish path.  And admitting is the first step, right?!

So, I will now head to my time-out and try my best to enforce a “no bullshit” from myself policy.

Let’s hope I can stay there for 7 more weeks. ;)