Who Am I?

So who am I? What authority do I have to tell you what to do with your life? None. No one does. Except for you. You have to come to the realization that you are alive. You will only live once. You need to live your life for yourself. You’re probably wondering why I even think I can help you.

Well, let me tell you about myself. If there was a child who was shy, it was me. On more than one occasion in middle school I had to use the bathroom while class was in session. Badly. I was too afraid to raise my hand and ask permission. I would wait until recess and then when no one was looking, duck into the woods and pee behind a tree. Always behind the same tree. I haven’t been back there, but I’d be surprised if anything actually grew in that spot to this day. It was the 1980s in a small Massachusetts town. This was of course before the days of helicopter parents, when a kid could just duck out of recess and no one would be too concerned.

Why did I do that? Why did I live my life like a housebroken dog? Because one day I decided that asking to go to the bathroom was too embarrassing for me to bear. So instead of just asking, like a rational person, I decided on my tree plan. It worked. Now, as an adult I look back and I ask myself, did I care when other kids asked to go to the bathroom? No. It didn’t even matter to me at all then. But when I needed to go, I was mortified. I had made this story up in my head how it would be the end of the world if I asked. So I ended up peeing behind a tree. All I’m saying is, don’t end up peeing behind a tree.

There came a time in my life that I knew I had to make a drastic action or this was going to be my path forever. I had to take “massive action” as Tony Robbins says. I thought what would be the last thing a shy person would do? I decided to become an actor. I enrolled in improv classes. o, if you’re not familiar with improv, a lo of the techniques I used to overcome shyness, I learned in improv. And another thing I learned about myself from improv classes, I’m not good at improv. Once I felt comfortable in front of a crowd, I took more acting classes.   

I ended up doing a student film. The premise was a young woman signs up to be the test subject for any medical experiment she can find. I was to play the part of a doctor. I was to check her vital signs and make sure she could do mildly strenuous exercise without getting woozy. As I watched this young woman do jumping jacks, she was supposed to stop and ask me when she’d be paid. I was supposed to respond with something like “Once all the tests are completed” in a mildly agitated tone. I sat there in a lab at Boston University. I placed myself in the position of a scientist who just wanted to get through his day. I tried to imagine what my character’s back story was. What he at in the morning for breakfast. What type of car he drove. I was very pleased with myself that I had created this character. I was the same person, but I had adopted a totally new way of thinking. Then it donned on me . . . if I had created an entirely new character, what was to stop me from making another character? In fact, was I (or what I considered to be “I”) just a construct I had made up? All of those experiences in my life are what made me think I was who I was. Maybe I wasn’t a shy as I though. I was still living in the tree pee stage of my life

-Exercise: Sense of Self is Entirely Made Up

As I stated in the above passage, the sense of self is mostly made up. What you need to do is think of a set of characteristics that you wish you had. Use them in your everyday life. Embrace them and make them you own. Want to talk to a stranger and ask for directions? This is called method acting.