Regret
Comments (0) I have a hangup in that I get very guilty and regretful when I see a project come to completion that I could have worked on, but didn’t. Last night I went to one of the final dress rehearsals for Sleepy Hollow, the show the theatre company I’m involved in is working on. It goes up tomorrow, and honestly is really great – it’s a musical retelling of the story, with live music played on-stage by the actors, and is a lot of fun. (At 75 minutes, it also is long enough without being too long.)
However, because of the stress and pressure I’ve been putting on myself lately, I stood up to the theatre company and said that I could only help minimally, and couldn’t commit to being at shows for house managing or whatnot. They weren’t happy about this, but I stuck to it because I had finally be convinced I need to drop responsibilities and focus on myself for a while.
And yet, when the performance was over, I had a pang of regret that I hadn’t helped out, even though I know I would have regretted doing that, and would have just added tons more stress to myself.
Likewise, the friend whose recital piece I was scheduled to work on saw the blog post where I talked about it being stressful, and we found a way that I could provide input and help without having to commit to the whole process. Definitely a good decision, and one that will undoubtedly lower the stress in my life, something I really need right now. But I know when I see the final performance, I’m going to regret having backed out.
I just always place so much weight on every individual project. I know I’m still young, and have a long artistic life ahead of me, but I always feel like if I don’t work on this project right now (for whatever ‘this project’ is) I’ll miss out on some unrecoverable experience.
I’m trying to change my point of view, but I just can’t emotionally get behind the idea that there will be more time for more projects in the future.
-R
Themocracy