There is No Small Gig

There is no small gig.  That’s what I have to keep telling myself.  It doesn’t matter what the pay is, the significance of the role, or if it’s going to get major air time.  What matters is that I was chosen. Out of the thousands or hundreds of submissions, I. was. chosen.  That’s HUGE, especially in a city where hundreds and sometimes thousands of people vie to be in the background! 

To be honest, believing this mantra is hard for me.  It’s hard because I’m used to being the chosen one: the woman chosen to receive the scholarship, the one chosen to lead a song on the album, the one chosen to represent her state.  I spent my entire life being #1, in the upper echelon, or at least in the top 10%!  Looking back, I see the inherent problems of this kind of existence.

Always being on top didn’t allow me to learn how to deal with NOT being chosen.  It didn’t teach me how to want something badly, not get it, yet rebound unscathed.  It didn’t teach me how to develop a perennial work ethic that surpasses immediate and indefinite results.  And it didn’t cultivate the type of gratefulness that I need to thrive in this present space. 

So now, in 2013, I invite God into this space, this new way of being, and I feel Him working.  He’s cultivating an internal gratefulness that is connected neither to how many gigs I book, nor to the size and scope of those gigs.  I find that I’m becoming grateful just for opportunities, and grateful for new relationships (with producers, casting directors, other actors, make-up artists).  Every audition is a gift, and everyone I meet on this journey is a jewel, because there is no small gig.