- John W. Gardner

I love this quote…

Seeing the end of Smallville has sparked a small, if not slightly obvious, epiphany: I now have a lot of time on my hands.

Being on a network television show for nearly a decade, I had not yet considered this unknown luxury.

It is an amazing thing, no doubt, but it is also terrifying at the same time.

I have an awesome life. I really do. I am blessed with so many friends, family, a wealth of opportunity and love. It is an amazing and wonderful thing.

But there is something more to life, more than the things I do and the people I interact with. There is meaning. There is what I want my life to mean and what kind of person I want to be. Both of which are, and only can be, determined by me. Through my choices and the thoughts that drive them, through the connected-ness I choose to see or not, and through the effort I put into knowing myself, I create the meaning of my existence.

The world is a wonderful and joyous place filled with the most beautiful and tragic acts happening in every moment, if you choose to see it, that is. I seem to be an addict of this life. I can’t get enough, and while I’m enjoying it, at the same time I’m terrified of losing it – of not being satiated with the world in front of me. But it’s the world inside of me, my internal experience of the world, that truly needs my attention.

To be quiet, to dig deep, to root out the subtext of each potent experience, asking why it means anything to me at all, I believe is how I will stop my internal world from spinning out of control, and allow myself to enjoy every moment, regardless of the circumstances.

I’m going to take time every day to stop and think about what I’m doing, not just plow through with little to no consideration. I believe making that deliberate and conscious choice to stop, at least once each day, to look at what is in front of me, what it means and why, will help me build and deepen that sense of meaning I’ve been searching for.

Wanting to leave the world a better place and not realizing where I fit into that plan is the one concept that never seems to stay strong and clear in my mind.

I want this year to be one of distillation and purpose. A year of clarification and celebration as I attempt to emerge with depth, wisdom, and intent.

Join me?

A request of pride

allison, i would like you, if you can and dont mind, is do a session on pride. you may have already done it because ive only started doing comments for like a month but anyway i mean like ask people what makes them proud and stuff please. if you read this i would appreciate a chat about it please.

JONNY

So this was a message requesting a post on pride. Here it goes.  When I think of pride, several things come to mind. One is my ego, that damn image I have of myself that I always seem to bring up when I need an excuse not to do things that scare or intimidate me.

Actually, let’s focus on that pride for this posting, then tomorrow we can explore further!

As some of you may know, I am directing this season. I was let off the hook last season due to the writer’s strike, but now this season it is back on again. And now I have no excuses. This is an opportunity I can’t pass up and yet every time I think about the process I feel as though I am going to throw up.

It’s that image, that pride, rearing it’s head and I feel like thwarting that character I believe I am in my day to day life is a fate worse than death. Facing failure and testing my pride– hell, even proving my believe in myself wrong, is like the scariest thing in the world to me. But if this is something I never test, if I walk through my life believing that I can do things I have never in fact tried or tested, how strong and confident will that pride really be.

One slip and the whole thing is torn apart.

It is my belief that the only way to build a foundation of self that is substantial, that won’t crumble at the first sight of questioning or failure, is to, in fact, fail. And then learn how to put the pieces back together from beginning to end. Then you truly understand how the curves and crevices fit and you have no fear of it falling to pieces again, cause you know it is no big thing to re-lay the concrete.

But man getting over that initial sense of fake self-confidence is a doozy.

More on this tomorrow

xo
allison

oh and by the way, my sites gonna be down for a few hours tonight and tomorrow due to some reconstruction! I’m redecorating! Fun!