I am now setting myself on fire using pyrotechnics, working on several circus acts, dreaming up new fire puppets and fire performance art pieces, performing in performance art pieces for Burning Man, organized the Pork Filled Players into an actual working and funny comedy troupe (with a lot of help from the rest of the group), I am entering the 8th season hosting my own Public Access TV show, spent a weekend on a drunken spree with over 150 other people all dressed as Santa Claus, and other instances of running amok. Heck I was in Bikini magazine and in an article in the New York Times!
Yet I do not always see the successes.
Sometimes in life we have blinders on that stop us from seeing how far we really come. We get all caught up in the moment. In just the last month I was in the New York Times, pulled off the biggest, boldest PyroBoy yet, and did such a great job being Gluttony during the Surpu Masu Scapegoat event that some people that know me fairly well thought I really was as drunk as I was acting and was actually concerned that I may not have realized how drunk I was. To top it all off, the Pork Filled Players have really started whipping our October show (all new material) into shape. In fact, we have started dropping sketches from this month's show to do in our February show. Yes it has been a wild year. I am proud of how far things have progressed. Everyone else wonders where I get the energy and I sit and wonder what more I can do.
So on this day of my birth, I want you all to make a pledge with me. Start writing down the highlights of your life over the last year. Track them all whether it is exercising every day for x number of days, to paying all of your bills on time, to quitting smoking. Over the year follow your progress. Do not let the blinders of the moment overwhelm you into thinking things are looking glum. I would be lying if I said I felt my life was at a peak right now I feel it is in a bit of a valley that I need to climb out from and continue on. Yet I have had so many successes in the last few months that it is silly for me to think any other way than to be proud of what I have accomplished.
Which is why I say to you, dear reader, that you should keep a list of your successes. Jot them down on the back of your calendar or something. When you feel down, overlook your successes and see if you can change your thoughts about your short term valleys. By changing your outlook you might change your energy and be able to change your outlook and your chance for success.
