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Next week is Thanksgiving, which makes me think of gratitude… and turkey, and pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce, and stuffing. But mostly gratitude.
I used to hate when people would use that word. I thought it was some New Age bullshit or Oprah-speak.
And I certainly didn't think having gratitude was attainable, and if it was, I was not interested in having any of it.
But the older and wiser I have become, the more I have realized that having gratitude is attainable, and it’s also something I would like to have even more of in my life.
One thing that always helps me feel gratitude (which I have probably stolen from Oprah), is to make a gratitude list of the things I am truly grateful for: a great family, friends, a house, a career and lots of support from people all over the country.
That, to me, is gratitude 101. What’s even trickier is being grateful for where you are at right now, especially if you think you should be farther along. This is PhD program in gratitude.
Maybe you have been improvising for two years and you aren't as far long as you’d like to be. Or you decided to write a screenplay and you can't understand why it's not going faster since you have been performing comedy for 11 years. Or one of your friends got a big opportunity and their success turned your life to shit.
A few weeks ago I wrote weeks about taking a stand up class online, and I am taking it again and it's kicking my ass, in a good way. That means I am learning and trying to break old habits.
I leave each class dejected. It's frustrating. I have all of these years of improvising under my belt and I’ve put up hugely successful one-person shows, and I am struggling with a stand-up class online.
It's humbling to say the least. And after all the self-pity and beating myself up settles, I can focus on the parts that I love. I am loving the process. The writing and rewriting of jokes. Getting clarity on my voice and sensibilities. Working with a great teacher. Being in a class of people who are as passionate about comedy as I am. Reaching out to Lauren and my friends for help and support.
And realizing, in spite of what I think, I am getting better at it. Is it where I want to be? No way, not even close.
And that is where the gratitude comes in: that I have been here before, not in stand-up but with improvising, podcasting, teaching, acting and a hundred other things I can't name right now.
"Anything that is worth doing is worth doing poorly," the old saying goes. So I’m trying to be grateful for showing up and doing it poorly. The more that I focus on the gratitude the less I focus on feeling like I am a complete loser and the less I ask myself what I am doing with my life. This is called progress and I am grateful that I can see it.
And one more thing while we are on the subject of gratitude — thank you for reading this blog on a regular basis and have a great Thanksgiving. I am taking next week off, so see you in December.