30 Days of Getting My Ass Kicked: Half Way Point

Its only been 15 days and I didn't even blog for all of them and I'm continuing my theory that I invited this in. Its been a shitty 15 days and the hardest part is even though I've acknowledging how hard its all been I've been wondering if I've really been following the steps. Telling my whole story. But there's been one person who I have told it all to.

My friend Charlotte, who's only about twenty has been witness to all my bullshit from halfway around the world and I thought to myself today that maybe I should give her a break from me. She's a girl who's wise beyond her years and will probably be incredibly successful. She's been incredibly concerned for me during this period where I've been a whiny bitch. And not this lame concern where you unload on them and they nod, but a real concern where they go out of their way to ask how you are.

I'm grateful for her concern and that I have such a beautiful friend. But I also feel really guilty. Why should this girl have to play therapist to some idiot on the other end of the globe? I was ready to take one of my breaks from Facebook. I periodically take these just to unplug. I told her I was getting off and she was upset that we wouldn't have any other way to talk. She knew I had been struggling and actually wanted to continue to talk.

I realized something. Charlotte was never someone I put on some bullshit guise for. Even when I first met her. I told her the second time we hung out about what a hard time I was having when we were drinking vodka straight from the bottle. I told her my girl problems and all the issues with my script and so an and she wasn't freaked out or anything. She's the fastest growing friendship I've ever had and it came from me telling my whole story to her.When you meet someone really genuine you need not worry about awkwardness or any of that shit and for you skeptics, believe me they are out there.  

30 Days of Getting My Ass Kicked and so it goes.

Am I doing this write? I don't think so. Telling myself is getting harder and harder as I get closer to 26 and in turn closer to 30 and the gaps in everything I always imagined for myself grow wider and wider. Some days I'm so in my head that when I re focus I think that I'm lucky I wasn't driving because I could have driven head on into a barrier.

What happened? I worked a lot and I've come to the conclusion that I hate my job but maybe that's all my fault I mean I've put myself in this position for a year and maybe I'm really encouraging this shitty situation maybe its my fault. I think about before my friend went away she told me I'd be a famous director when she got back and I don't think I could be further off.

At work I try to have meaningful conversations with guests and this is usually to no avail. I try to recount positive memories from the day and while there's never anything that stands out. But maybe this is an area where its okay to be vulnerable, maybe I need to tell the story about how I'm not okay with this situation and that its really something that gets me down. You know what else has me feeling like I'm not enough is that I have multiple superiors who are younger than me. Its not only that I work where I do, it's that I'm in the most inconsequential position. This is what I have to tell me people when they ask about my career. I guess I'm vulnerable now but this all fucking really frustrating and honestly I don't feel better discussing it.

All I need right now is the sense of love and belonging. Now what does everyone tell me. That this is just a necessary step and that I'm still so young. And I can't argue, they are right. I just don't have the courage to be imperfect. Here's one more thing before I go. Me and my friend, the one I keep bringing up. The friendship reached its end. It didn't work. I can't help but feeling like I failed. And it happens, people come and go and its normal. I didn't fail I'm just imperfect but I can't except that right now. I feel vulnerable I feel all kinds of shame, but I'm still not at the point where telling mys story turns into any kind of connection. Oh my god this is gonna suck.

Day 6 or I don't know. 30 Days of Getting your Ass Kicked

I think I'm going to lay off the alcohol for the remainder of this challenge or at least reduce it and I think I'm going to get off of Facebook. Not only have these traumatic sad experiences shaken me up the last few days but its been especially challenging whenever I have to relay it back to someone else. No why would I relay it back to anyone else? Because that's the whole part of this motherfucking challenge that matters.

Tell your whole story.

I've had a year of being down on myself that came from a combination of things, but now I look at it and its really been more like a year of recovery. I realize something, that as I express myself more, the more I open I become the more I, in turn become receptive to others around me. I become less of a judgmental assclown. This happened the other night when I randomly called a friend, who I guess had a year just like mine and is now finally on to better things. It was one of the best times I'd ever had hanging out with her. And it was an occasion where I was taken back by how genuinely excited I was for someone else. It's a not a feeling I have normally because I'm insanely jealous of others success and that's one of the worst mindsets anyone can possibly have. Because not only does the feeling of being truly happy for someone make you not a piece of shit by very definition, but because its a great feeling. Other people's journeys should feel like inspiration not hindrances. 

So here's what I have to say. If you can do this with a friend that's great and if you can do it with an acquaintance that's even better. Take the time to be in awe of someone's journey even if its all about a really good cupcake they found. Take this in more often and fighting the good fight will start to come way more naturally.    

Day 4 30 Days of Getting Your Ass Kicked

This is probably closer to Day 6 well. Fuck how did that happen. Maybe I should just stop labeling the days and just blog whenever I can. You know what? I'm not looking for perfection. Just progress. The last few days kicked my ass. Here's what happened I was a champion on Thursday morning. I completed my Artist's Way stuff and I had written a nice portion of my script and then stupid shit happened. My best/friend I've always had a thing for....yeah the same one I blocked. Got engaged. Despite everything I found out.

I'm not going to turn this entry into a post about my personal life. Or how I'm tired of being friendzoned or anything stupid like that. Because that's not what this bullshit blog is about. The blog is about how a deal with it. And I didn't do it the right way. I drank way too much and spent dinner describing my sexual exploits to my parents over martinis. I spent the rest of the night in a drunken stupor, taking a bubble bath and calling up random friends with all my sad stories. This is the part that's important. Because not only did I purge all my sadness and even cry for portions but I opened up to....shit...I don't know how many people I have to check my phone.

And it wasn't just that I cried like a bitch. It was that so many other people re assured me that they'd been through just as much nonsense. The general consensus was...that it sucks and its going to keep sucking. That's never on any plaques but it really is the best advice sometimes, no tactics no reflections, just the realization that....things can get pretty shitty. Wow I wanted this to sound profound but here we are. I wish I could remember the better advice I was given but I was drunk. More updates soon.

30 Days of Getting Your Ass Kicked: Day 3

When labeling theses posts I always forget if I should put the challenge first or the number of days.

How do you set out to start your day when you're deciding to be vulnerable? Do walk out the door, looking for things that will make you cry? Do you tell strangers about your insecurities you have addressing women in public? Well maybe in time. But for right now it's about recognizing situations that make you feel vulnerable and....I'm not sure....being okay with it? Well maybe not. I don't know this is a process. 

Was I especially insecure today? No not really I was pretty chill at work today. But my job is boring. Here's what I'm vulnerable about. After having a meeting I went to a friends birthday celebration and had some drinks. I had an adorable friend who also has the plan to move to NY around the same time as me. It was great talking to her about our mutual plans but it was also a little scary. Why because she plans on moving really soon and I have no reason not to do the same. I'm just scared. I mean what is this shit am I this much of a lunatic? Why can't I just throw my hat over the wall and commit to something. 

But that part doesn't even matter. The point is I'm constantly faced with these bullshit existential questions while in social situations and this all drastically cuts down on my fun. I have a hard time being in the moment. Again this challenge leaves me sitting with my thumb up my ass because this is something I need to work on.

But here's a start. My friend kept telling me that in regards to moving that she'd never been so equally excited and scared. Which doesn't sound so bad. When I look back I realize all the times I was scared ended up being my craziest memories. Why can't I maintain that in the moment. Maybe if I took more jumps I would remember how exciting it is being a little afraid.

30 Days of Getting Your Ass Kicked: Day 2

" By tossing out the old and unworkable, we make way for the new and suitable. When the search and discard impulse seizes you, two crosscurrents are at work: the old you is leaving and grieving, while the new you celebrates and grows strong. As with any rupture there is both tension and relief. Long seated depression breaks up like an ice-floe. Long Frozen feelings thaw, melt, cascade, flood and often overrun their container (you). You may find yourself feeling volatile and changeable. You are.

Be prepared for bursts of tears and laughter. A certain giddiness may accompany certain stabs of loss. Think of yourself as an accident victim walking away from the crash: your old life has crashed and burned: your new life isn't apparent yet. You may feel yourself to be temporarily without a vehicle. Just keep walking."

 

This is my favorite section of the whole of The Artist's Way. Today was a day where all that depression broke up like and ice-flow. There's a challenge on Superbetter that asks to take a risk. Just a small step forward towards what you've been working on. I realized this whole past year, starting when I turned 25, has been a long period of recovery. I've been trying to work on my art by working on my life and its had mixed results. Today I was vulnerable, even if I only read my whole story back to myself. I pinpointed so much of my misery back to one relationship. And its hard because nobody means to do that much damage to someone. But it just happens. It was odd because she was the person who gave me The Artist's Way and she's the exact kind of person the book encourages you to get rid of. It not to say that all my misery came from her, but when you take the step to change, it shakes up everything in your life and the sensation of feeling so changeable is once in a blue moon. 

 

I came to all these decisions and revelations largely without anyone knowing. I worked a long shift today, wished all the guests a Jolly Saint Patrick's day and high fived everyone all while processing a major shift. When I drove home after cutting this person out (on my lunch break) so many of the criticisms I used to apply to myself were gone. I mean this whole year I've been waking up at night feeling like I haven't done enough. 25 is still such a scary age today when you consider that Orson Welles was 25 when he made Citizen Kane and now I'm close to 26 but today I looked back at the year, thought about my standup, the friends I've made and I felt like "Oh I did pretty well". And what this has to do with the toxic person I said goodbye to is this: with this person I was always feeling like I needed to do more, but not for me, to show her how great I am, but this whole feeling of not being enough melted away as soon as I decided once and for all that this person didn't matter. 'I am enough' is what I found myself thinking. All the self doubt and soul searching was part of the process. So what? I took a year to breath and recover, smell flowers, travel, meet people, do comedy, blog, cry, punch walls, and so on. I'm okay with what I've done...I think...

 

My friend Charlotte had a hand in helping me wipe this person off my FB. She wrote me a message from my perspective. 

  

Hi my name is Greg and I hereby promise myself to not try to look her up again

I'm a cool dude and I don't need no girl who aint got time for me, cause you can be sure as hell i aint got time for them

btw im awesome and my name is greg.

Day 1: 30 Days of getting yoyr ass kicked

There's pros and cons to this new challenge. The pro is that unlike the happiness exercise it's not dependent on a bunch of tasks. This challenge is more of a state of mind where I can freewheel it and just jot down whatever is on my mind. Which brings me to the con. And that's when putting my true feelings out there I feel it's necessary to provide a disclaimer that I'm not going to murder anyone every few paragraphs. Yeah, when you air your most personal insecurities as I'm about to, I'm convinced I'll have a few readers concerned about my mental health.

Today I was thinking about the talk, the vulnerability one. One of the specifics is being able to tell your whole story. And what does that mean exactly? I think it means not shying away from the real you. The real you is something that isn't instantly apparent for most of us and it's something you loose sight of when you become increasingly tolerant of shit that irks you. Typically when someone says 'its okay' its really not. So the first thing you need to do to identify the real you is to pick out all the things that make you say okay when it really isn't.

So what's all this shit mean?

Basically I just got from a trip to NYC. New York is my favorite city and I the past years its where I go to become spiritually rejuvenated. Which is weird because I imagine most people leave New York to become spiritually rejuvenated. Point is I came back feeling a bit weird, I looked forward to the trip for so long I felt sad like I had nothing to look forward to. But that was good because it helped me realize how much my situation needs to change. 1. I need to realize what exactly it is I want to to do 2. There's still a potentially toxic relationship that I need to end. The person I need to forget about was the person I had gone with to NYC two years ago and this time I realized that two whole years had passed. In two years I've had acquaintances get married, have kids and leave relationships that were troublesome (every-time I use the word troublesome I feel like a fuckin grandpa)  and I just realized if all that shit could be done in two years time then I can certainly forget about this person. 3. It's not all this person's fault because I have serious relationship problems. What's especially irritating is its a very-

Disclaimer: I Have no intentions of murdering anyone.

Specific issue. I have no problems meeting new people or socializing. I have lots of attractive lady friends and typically with those relationships I become as close as two people can become without being intimate and I just can't take that extra leap. What I told my friend was " I just don't know about romance and making sparks and I always end up confused." So just to be clear I'm not one of those friendzone clowns. Because I know that I'm the problem. I'm too calculated, and in my head to find myself in the spontaneous place where love blossoms. In fact what I realized is that all the relationships or flings that I had they occurred during really lighthearted periods. Now on the other hand all the shitty moments of insecurity and unrequited romances happened after any light hardheartedness had passed. It's like as soon as I put my feelings out there in the universe or really committed to wanting to actually date someone I was struck down, in some Biblical fashion. Only instead of turning into a pillar of salt, I would just be sentenced to listening to sad love songs and masturbating by myself.

Now there's one more con to this challenge. And that is that there are not really any solutions. At least not for a while. This challenge is about self awareness and that's a long annoying process but its one that I'm saddling up for. Till next time.

30 days getting your ass kicked Intro: And Return

On this day next year I'll be done.

I'm treating my first two talks as a primer for what's coming now where I really buckle down. I let a lot of this get away from me and its upsetting because the happiness exercise was really yielding results. I'm also going to post a reflection about some of my experiences with the super better app. That has been a small revelation. Point is I'm not giving up on my little journey. And I'm spearheading the real adventure with a challenge based around one of my top five TED talks. Brene' Brown's The Power Of Vulnerability. Should TED talks be italicized? Who gives a shit.The point is that I'm a messy crazy character full of shenanigans and that's a beautiful thing. Here's the talks.

1.       30 days getting your ass kicked.

The Talks:

Kathryn Schultz: On Being Wrong: The image that stuck with me from Kathryn’s talk was she conjured the image of Wile Coyote not falling down until he realizes he fucked up. Being wrong feels pretty awful and all we need to remind ourselves of that is to look at that paper from elementary school where our teacher marks it up with a red pen. Hell, maybe that happened recently. And our perceptions about the person who wrote this paper are always negative. The idea is that if we get something wrong there’s something wrong with us. That’s not case and it’s important to abandon this internal sense of rightness. We have assumptions about those who disagree with us. But what’s tragic is being wrong is the whole point of being human and most people miss out on that.

Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability  Brown had what she calls a breakdown when she realized that the people who let themselves be seen were in fact the people who were more likely to find love. The definition of courage really means to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. In order for connection to happen we have to let ourselves be seen. The people who have a strong sense of love and belonging and the people with a strong sense believe they are worthy of love and belonging. Its all pretty shocking because basically what it means is that if you're one of those lunatics always going on about what an emotional idiot you are, her prescription is basically to embrace that because you'll actually be better off. Because if you're like me or like miss Brown, you're full of vulnerabilities and insecurities but try to fight them off with a stick and usually just make them worse. This talk presents a more optimistic way of dealing with all that.  

The Challenge: One of the only times I got into a disagreement with my therapist is where he told me he was not big on turning negatives into positives. And he’s right but it’s important because that’s not what this is. What it is about is being okay with being wrong or backwards or overshooting with all the love I might have to give. I love boxing, I could never do it but I can imagine stepping into the ring and instead of being hit being prepared to be wrong. There’s a saying at my job where if a guest has a question we don’t know the answer to we say ‘I don’t know but let’s find out together’ maybe its bigger than working in a theme park and maybe that’s a piece of advice I should heed even if I’m not dressed like a sideshow freak. 

The Activity: The challenge is to reflect on times that I’ve been wrong and rethink the consequences and realize most of them were no big. And think about times when I thought one thing would happen and something else did. And think about how a disagreement I might have had led to difference in perspective and the values of those perspectives.

Second, here’s the tricky part.

>Have the Courage to tell your whole story with your full heart.

>Have the compassion to love yourself love that you fucked up the numbers last night.

>Here's what you're missing. Just be authentic forget what you need to be here's the real challenge.

>Try not numb myself with any drugs or alcohol. I also will not perfect for the sake of not being vulnerable. 

> Love with your whole heart.

> Let yourself be seen. 

> Practice gratitude and joy and not in the great moments in the awful ones.

> And remember that I am enough 

Fucking crazy right?

30 Days of Happiness reflection

So I screwed up the last week or so of my happiness challenge, I became almost a week behind on my blog entries. Between my friend moving back, work, and trying to plan a half assed trip to New York I really lost track of my priorities. But I don't quiet think I failed. I look back at February and this whole challenge has made things feel especially long. But I look back and its full of the memories I recalled and the thing is the nonsense I listed might not be anymore significant than the shit that happens in any given month. But what matters is I appreciate it all a lot more.

Towards the end of the month I was on the phone with my friend Kari (she won't care that she's named) and she's taken up coaching me on all my Artist's Way tasks. She's knows my process and she won't allow to flip out and derail the whole thing because I'm discouraged. "We're just looking for progress not perfection". That's all I've needed to tell myself this whole time. In February I've grown closer with my family, returned to standup, met other comedians, ran outside with my dog and picked up a yellow flower and contemplated how well everything in life was really falling into place, I learned random shit about the presidents and started drawing president Roosevelt's guinea pigs. He had five of them. Not that that matters.

But the most important part of this whole exercise isn't that it's easier for me. The point is and the whole reason I embarked on this idiotic quest was because the talk was entitled 5 secrets to happier work. Happiness makes you more effective at getting shit done. I saw that the most at work especially all the mornings I was up early, it used to be the opportune time for me to indulge in all kinds of self hatred. But Lately I find myself thinking 'today is going to be just fine'.

Baby steps people.

I put most of my personal projects on hold. My screenwriting, my comedy, filmmaking and so on well now I'm excited to return to all those things. Because I can have fun with my work now....I think. And I realized that was something sorely missing from my work process. I think about my ideas and am absolutely giddy about them but when I sit down to write...and not as fun. But now my mentality has changed.

I know that happiness is a choice that's simpler than a lot of people make it out to be and now with this ability I can handle a lot more. I feel like I need someone to play M to my James Bond, to stand behind a desk and ask me 'are you ready to get back to work Greg?'

With pleasure M. With Pleasure.