UNITED STATES─What do you love America? Let me repeat, what do you love, not who do you love? We can get into a major discussion about the difference between something you love and that you’re passionate about not being the same thing, but for this column they are. When you love something it brings excitement to your life; it brings awareness, it gives you the chills when you see something you’ve been working on come to fruition in front of your eyes.
For example, I am a writer first and foremost before anything else. I think I learned somewhere in the sixth or seventh grade, my ability. Yes most people can write, but I knew my ability to write was something special. How so? It’s not a chore for me to write. I just naturally do it and whatever comes to my mind, I place it on a piece of paper, without frustration or hesitation.
Yeah, I don’t rely on technology to gather my thoughts. I feel there is something powerful about taking your ideas and placing it on a piece of paper. It’s like you reinforce your ideas and thoughts, and that is a powerful thing to be able to do. Once you know you’re good at something, you need to channel that energy into turning it into something profitable.
There are people who can draw like no another, you can paint, you can design, you can build the list of opportunities are endless. There are those who are musically inclined, singing might not be the easiest career to break into, but if you love it and you’re good at it, push for it. You might start out composing, but that composure could lead to songwriting, and for those not in the know, there is where the money is in the music industry, next to producing.
There are those who are great with electronics and engineering. Trust me being able to build something from scratch is an amazing skill. It is a gift that can really draw in the big bucks. Look, I don’t want you to do something because you’re thinking about making big bucks (while that helps), you have to be happy at the end of the day. So many people work jobs where they are absolutely miserable, but because they earn such a decent amount of money they stick around. Money is great, but it cannot buy happiness. Some might argue otherwise, but I say you know you’re unhappy that no matter what you buy or do, it doesn’t bring you any joy.
I recently read or watched something on TV in the past week that resonated with me: a writer who wants to succeed in the entertainment industry has to always write. While I write daily, I can’t recall the last time I wrote something that really mattered to me. In other words, I had not been challenging myself on a creative scale, and it didn’t come to my attention until I heard someone say it.
It hit me, what the hell are you doing! You say you want to succeed as a screenwriter, but in all honesty, you haven’t written a script or looked at a treatment in about 2 years. Why? Over-focused on work and pleasing others that I just let it slip thru the cracks. You know what is problematic? My mind always has an idea in the churning, there is NOT a reason I should not be taking what’s in my head and placing it on a piece of paper. Nurture the ideas, fine tune them and focus on perfecting it as much as possible.
The point of this column is to remind America that we all have things that we love, and sometimes we lose focus because we’re concerned with so many other things we forget that. Reminder you only have one life to live, don’t let things that matter the most to you get lost in the chaos.
