What Inspires Me Today - April 18, 2023

 Wipe It Down

There is part of me that's excited about this thought and a part of me that equally cringes.

Today's thoughts are on having a clean work area/home/kitchen/etc.  

Now before you get all "Yeah, get your shit together you dirty sons of bitches!" let me say that is where my cringey-ness comes in.  For the most part, I am not that person. I don't mind messiness. In fact, I think creative people tend to be on the messy side. Life is not messy, we do not need to be, nor should we be, perfectly tidy all the time.

What I'm most inspired by today is the process of tidying up - or as I grew up saying in Western PA - Redding Up.  

There is a wonderful sense of peace and purpose in a clean work area - in a clean kitchen or bathroom, or garage.  Getting ready to make dinner, bake a cake, etc feels so much lighter and happy when things are in their place and you have space to work. I know that when I wipe down my desk at work and get rid of the crumbs and dust and dirt, I feel a real sense of relief. 

But that does not happen on its own. 

Unless you have the wherewithal to have others clean up after you, you have to do the work to clean your space. It takes work to get to where you want to be, to get to where you feel good about what you're about to do.  And that work is worth your time. You are worth that time.

Sometimes we forget how much we are worth taking a minute to wipe it down so we can see ourselves shine as brightly as we are.

Inspired to break through

A couple of weeks ago we were fortunate to host the Hamilton Educational program (EduHam) at work. This program  is an eductional component of the blockbuster show. Detroit was even more fortunate in that we had a six week run of Hamilton and we're the hometown of its producer Jeffrey Seller, so we had TWO EduHam events.  Between them, more than 3800 students participated and got to see this incredible show for $10 or less.

As part of the curriculum, students are required to create their own performance piece inspired by the story and production of Hamilton. Nearly 20 students at each performance were chosen to present their original piece on stage at the Fisher Theatre in front of 2,000 of their peers. High School me would have freeked out if I was chosen to do this. It would have been a monumental, life-changing event.

These kids told fear to take a hike and the audience supported them 1000%. Some of them turned in amazing performances, others were less polished but they did it and everyone cheered. EVERYONE CHEERED. It was inspiring.

On the evening of the first EduHam, Go Comedy! hosted our annual awards event and one of our resident members won a special award. Receiving it, she talked about how Go was like a family to her - how she finaly found a place where people accepted her wierdness - our improv community accepted her.

We embrace, support, and build up each other's unique and diverse qualities - we are beautifully different and wonderful.

I grew up being taught that on many levels. Stories like Rudolph, Rudy, A Dog Named Kitty, etc. all taught me that we are all important - God made you different and special and he loves you. Be who he made you to be.

Interestingly for me, the one person in my life who pushed me away from that concept was my mom. Not in a bad way, but in a protective way.

I was a nerd, a bit of a geek. I got made fun of for it and I always wanted to fit in or be "popular." My mom knew how much I agonized about it - and when stuff came up that she knew I'd get flack for, she warned me - particularly if it was something that would cause ripples or embarrass me. Now that I'm an adult, I know that also meant - her.

It's an interesting lesson in how our parents often tried their best to protect us - but sometimes the best thing was not what they did. Their intent was - or seemed to them - to do good. Yet, now as adults we struggle with the unintended consequences of their choices.

But like those kids who faced fear head on, pushed through and received amazing support - we can push forward, do something we did not think was possible and break through our own barriers.

The ability to do that resides in all of us
The ability to support each other resides in all of us
The ability to accomplish great things belongs to all of us.

First Things: 2018

Around the start of a new year I always try to take a few moments and journal my thoughts from the previous year and those for the next. On New Year's Eve I jotted down my thoughts about the end of 2017. Today I finally got around to looking forward and in the process was reminded of something I tell myself a lot.

Feeling defeated is easy

Feeling empowered is a choice

It is easy to feel like the world is against you. To look at the chips and see how they did not fall like you wanted. It is easy to see external things as the cause of our problems, issues, defeats, difficulties, etc.. It is true - they DO affect us. We are battered by the world. Life is a hurricane.

But we have a choice to make - do we allow all of that to let us feel defeated - or do we make a choice to take power over one thing? It's easy to rest - but to get up, we have to make a choice to stand. We can choose to have power over one thing and move forward to the next, and the next, and the next.