“The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.” – Ben Stein
If you haven’t seen Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, it’s worth 90 minutes of your time. While Michael Moore is constantly praised for his truth-twisting “documentaries,” Mr. Stein is chastised for his much truer effort. But I digress.
I like Mr. Stein’s quote about deciding what you want. How true it is. It brings me back to my earliest entries in this blog when I was defining my goal for 2009. I didn’t set out to sell a screenplay or produce another movie or be cast in a major Hollywood film. I simply wanted to create enough income to allow my wife to leave her job and stay home to raise our kids.
How short I fell.
Yet I made enough progress to keep going. Many times have I prayed to have this desire lifted. Instead the desire grows. While I am not financially free yet, I have had many projects along the way to help pay the bills and reinvest in my company. Creatively, I am not finding much fulfillment in the projects, but professionally, I am building a respectable portfolio.
How should I shape my goal for 2010? Logically, I should lower the bar and make the goal more attainable. Logically, my 2010 goal(s) should be realistic instead of the impossible goal of 2009. Logically, I shouldn’t expect anything close to what I really want in 2010. Right?
When has logic ever paid dividends? My goal(s) for 2010 will be loftier than last year’s. To paraphrase a popular US Army slogan, “The difficult I’ll do immediately… the impossible may just take a little longer.”
And along the way I’ll share my mistakes and successes, hopefully being of assistance to somebody else sharing the journey with me.
Dear 2010,
Please be good to me. I’ll do the same to you.
Love,
Justen
1 comment:
I'm also reminded of one of my favorite Cat Stevens songs..."if you want to sing out, sing out."
You're on your way, Justen! I really admire what you've done with the company and the fact that this is your only job. And although you've told me that you want acting to be your focus, you've embraced all aspects of filmmaking to help you get there faster. I think that openness to knowledge is something that I've lacked...though I want to primarily be a writer/director, I really should force myself to learn the other aspects of filmmaking just to make the journey easier (specifically, camera/lighting/editing). It's just so much more easier to hand that over to someone else who is better at it. That may be...but it doesn't mean I can't use smaller projects to learn it. Ultimately, I think that will help me be a writer/director.
Wow, sorry for hijacking your blog and turning it into my own blog, lol.
I appreciate and enjoy reading your insights, as always.
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