The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

When Is Enough, Enough? [Part 1 of 3]

 Blind   Faith

So this is an issue that I think everyone goes through at some point in their life … where their passion or inherent belief in a God-given talent, fails to achieve the acclaim/success they were convinced would be theirs at some point in their life.

When you’re younger you convince yourself the ‘break-through’ is just around the corner … a matter of days, weeks or getting yourself infront of the right person … but as you get older, the doubts start to not just enter your mind, but stay there and settle a little.

Before you know it, these doubts have overtaken your unshakeable belief and you find yourself in a mindframe of ‘defeat’ … where you experience a sense of desperation as you realise your dreams were just that – dreams – and your failure was [if you’re blinkered] the result of the World being against you or [if you feel defeatist]  your ignorance to waste so much of your energy and life on something you, with hindsight, could never hope to have achieved.

It’s tough to face your hopes and realise they were just fantasies … but we all do it at different points in our lives and relegate them [as we get older] to just being a part of ‘growing up’.

I remember years ago, I met a youngish actor at an audition we were holding for an Apple Tango commercial and having just been basically humiliated by the creative team [he had to pretend he was masturbating over a can of fizzy pop] he said to me he had come to the sad realisation that his goal of becoming a famous movie actor was pretty much over because whichever he looked at it, what he was doing was about as low as he could get.

The pain in his eyes was incredible … this was a moment where years and years of undying belief was not only destroyed, but left in a heap at the bottom of his heart and while he tried to soften the pain by saying he could now pursue the other opportunities and interests in his life, you knew inside he was hurting with a pain that was almost all consuming.

By pure chance I met him a few weeks later and I distinctly remember him telling me how he should of known he wasn’t cut out for an actors life because his Mum, Dad and Girlfriend had all started acting like he’d just come out of a coma rather than seen his ultimate desire for over 20 years be destroyed beyond all repair.

As I said, I am sure we all have our own examples [I know I was devastated when I realised my life as a session guitarist wasn’t just over, but legally restricted] … so the question is when do you decide enough is enough or do you think life decides for you?

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