Friday, March 18, 2011

Atheist Me - Day 5

A late post today.  It's Friday, after all, and even we experimental atheists TGIF-it in this life, don't we?

On Day 5 of my experiment, I found out that the commercial I was shortlisted for decided not to cast me.  Upon hearing the news, I was initially really irritated and disappointed.  Given the fact that we are 3 1/2 months into the year, it would be really great if I could book something for 2011 already.  But in the midst of my frustration, I remembered that this is just how it goes sometimes.  There are things that are out of my control.  There was no reason to take it personally because there is "no one" or "no thing" out there deciding that life is supposed to be difficult for me.  There is also no force outside of me, that I cannot seem to align with, keeping me from my good.  The fact that I didn't get the commercial just boiled down to something that happened in my life's experience that was beyond my control.  And this perspective helped me to let go of the crappy mood that was threatening to ruin my day.

Then something really cool happened.   After a somewhat antsy wait on my part to hear the voice demos I had recorded three weeks ago, I opened my email to discover a rough cut waiting for me!  I'd been really nervous about the whole thing because I'm at the very beginning of my voice career.  A lot rides on a voice reel, particularly as I am wanting to carve out a healthy niche for myself as a voice actor in order to side step the whole, "Hmmm...  She looks too much like my second grade teacher's uncle's cousin's cat, Methesuba, and unfortunately I'm allergic to cats so we're going to have to go another way..." argument for not picking me as the actor they cast on camera.  (When you audition for a voice project, it doesn't matter what you look like.  It only matters how you sound.)   I want to be able to earn a living in this part of my field and I was worried that I wouldn't have enough variety for my voice reel and that the man who runs the studio where I recorded it wouldn't have enough material to work with from my session.   However, when I checked my email, after getting the news that the commercial hadn't gone my way, I was delighted to discover some incredibly encouraging feedback from the tech.  He felt that we actually had too much solid material to work with, that we ultimately had to make some serious cuts to the reel because it was too long and he was stuck as to which voices to drop.  He wrote, "I don't want to leave any great voices on the cutting room floor.  You have a lot of great voices here, you don't have to worry about anything..."

Now, I could have shrugged this off by choosing to focus on the thing that hadn't gone my way that day.  However, I chose to pick the joyful stuff that was happening and simply focused on that instead.  For the first time in a long time, I was able to manage my thoughts.  As a result, I was able to appreciate this feedback because of my decision to eliminate the spiritual entity from the equation, and thus the resentment and anger that something "out there" was making life hard for me.  I chose not to be so pissy about something I couldn't control and rather I found the joy in the thing I could control.  It made for a happy side effect to the whole atheism experiment.

Now I will choose to eat some home made rice pudding.  For I have decreed it.

Wishing a happy Friday to you and yours!

Thank you for joining me in my quest for bliss.

Your pal,

The Happiness Detective

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

On many machines, when sufficient cash to afford a bonus is taken in, the bonus just isn't instantly awarded. Typically the sport merely stops making the reels slip off the bonus symbols for a few of} games. If the participant fails 우리카지노 to hit the bonus during these "standby games", it is added to the "inventory" for later collection. Many current games, after finishing a bonus spherical, set the likelihood to launch further inventory very excessive for the primary few games. As a end result, a lucky participant could get to play quantity of} bonus rounds in a row (a "renchan"), making payouts of 5,000 or even 10,000 coins attainable. The lure of "inventory" ready within the machine, and risk of|the potential of|the potential for} "renchan" tease the gambler to maintain feeding the machine.