Realizing Your Greatness

Since my last post I've been spending quite a bit of time with my son Rory, The Youngest Younger. He just celebrated his first birthday and I'm so glad that I've been able to spend a great deal of time with him during that first year. Not having a day job has it's privileges and contrary to the popular image of being a comedian, he doesn't allow me to sit on the couch and spend the day watching daytime television in search of new comedy material. He has however become my hero. There's so much to admire about him that inspires my art. As an actor I'm inspired to be in the moment because he's totally capable of doing just that and displays it when he starts to cry abruptly when he drops his favorite toy but becomes the happiest baby on the face of the earth when I pick it up and put it back in his hand. I also like his spirit. The spirit that allows him to fall down, hurt himself, cry with all the passion he can muster but get back up and go try to do the same thing that made him fall in the first place.

Tonight I came so close to not writing this post. I think one of the main reasons that I almost walked away from completing this entry tonight is that I usually open each post with an update on what I've done in my career since the last post and I really didn't think I had much to report, but I realized that was not a good excuse. It made me think about all of the things I say to myself when I'm in between gigs or I'm waiting for the next great thing to happen in my life. One thing I've realized in this journey of artistic pursuits is, there is always preparation involved with creating. Some of that preparation is us getting ready and some of it is in the hands of outside forces. One thing I like to say is, "before you book that gig, there are some people in a room talking about you when you don't even realize". While you think no one is thinking about you, there are people speaking highly of you who are about to give you your next job.

Another form of preparation for the next great thing is the inner preparation that we must do. I've found that great things tend to not happen for us until we realize our greatness. That's a hard thing for most of us to swallow because we spend all of our life trying to not let people feel that we think we're "all that". We're told that we have to be humble, but eventually to achieve a great thing we have to tap into our greatness. We all have greatness within us. We're great creations even if we never achieve anything great. Just living is a manifestation of greatness.

Most "great" people can tell a story of knowing very vividly that they were meant to do something great. It's just a knowledge they have. Most can remember the first inkling of it in their childhood. One thing for certain is that they were able to achieve greatness because they realized their greatness. I say all that to say, stop holding yourself back. Most of the time when we play humble it's only for the benefit of someone else, so they don't feel so bad or so that we don't look like we think we're better than anyone else. That's the thing, you have to realize that you are great. You are good and you're worthy to be the person who achieves the "great thing".