Everyday Is an Audition
By nature, we humans are very goal-oriented. Goals of primal times– to secure food, to reproduce– have grown up into goals– getting that great job title, the next promotion, that ring on the finger.
We celebrate milestones. Milestones are great measurable, concrete things to work toward on paper. But the thing about milestones is that they are point-in-time– a highly limited status check in a fleeting moment.
Less measurable and less frequently celebrated is who we are off paper– the ethical decisions we have made, the impression we have made on other people, the level to which people respect and revere us. However immeasurable these things, I suspect that they are infinitely more meaningful when it comes to happiness and to reaching overall goals of whom we imagine ourselves becoming holistically.
Perhaps its because I recently saw Black Swan (amazing movie, by the way), but I wonder if the analogy is an audition. Ballet is a beautiful analogy for life in general– requiring grace, composure, skill, endurance, and the ability to enrapture an audience. An audition in ballet requires not only the physical skill of the role, but also confidence, emotion, attitude, and mental transformation.
Everyday, we should be auditioning for the role of whom we want to someday become. Maybe you can’t do those 32 fouettés in a row yet, but you can practice one, two, or ten. Maybe you can’t lead hundreds of people in a C-level role today, but you can practice by acting responsibly, ethically, and commanding respect today.
We can’t all be ballerinas, but we can all be better. One day at a time.
