Note To Self

Another nothing day today. I can see where I’m going wrong, I just don’t know how to put myself right. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough. Or at all.

In yesterday’s post I mentioned one of my favourite film directors, Woody Allen. A lot of what I wrote about yesterday can be summed up, in far fewer words than I used, by this Woody Allen quote. I read this biography a few months ago and wrote this particular quote in my notebook so that I wouldn’t forget it:

"80 percent of life is just showing up."

Here is the author’s explanation of exactly what Woody meant:

"By this Woody means that if you put yourself in the way of opportunity – make yourself available to, say, a woman who is attractive to you, or some task you think you might be qualified for – something good may come of the fact that you are there and that someone else, perhaps equally qualified, is not. The corollary of that idea, of course, has to do with not showing up – not finishing your play or novel, not going to the audition, being so shy or insecure that you dare not risk failure."
- Richard Shickel, in his biography of Woody entitled Woody Allen

It’s such simple advice. It’s not a guarantee that action will equal success, instead it’s a statement about how inaction will all but guarantee failure. I think it’s the perfect advice for someone in my current situation, that is, someone who’s going nowhere, and fast. I recognise the fact that a big part of the reason I’m unhappy is that I never do anything. I never take even small risks in life and I really feel like I want to change - that I need to change - what I’m doing but the emotional part of my brain just won’t let me believe that I’m capable of making that change.

Where do I go from here? You can lead a horse to water but what do you do if the stupid thing ignores it and is slowly dying of thirst? And what if you are the horse and you know you need to drink but still won't? What then?