Needs and wants - A comparison.
So, I'm a little bit reflective right now, because I'm doing a kind of gig soon, and its been a while. I have been thinking about whether or not it will all work after so long, and hoping my funny hasn't healed up on me.
The obvious things pop into my head - hmmm, do I still need it? do I still want it? do I still have it?
Do I still need it?
Need has taken on a different meaning lately, and things I used to think I absolutely needed have been dropped from the list. I think its because the NEED list is the scary one. The list of things that will mess me up if I don't have them. Those are things that should be solid. Stability comes from keeping that list of things flowing in substatial amounts. On the list are things like my family, my home, my job, some money, some medication, some peace and quiet times, sleep.
Now here are a few of the things that USED to be on the NEED list, and that I'm glad to say I've crossed off - writing, improv, comedy, theatre, pleasing people.
Don't get me wrong though, they aren't gone from my life. I just moved them. I moved them from the NEED list to the WANT list. I realised that I'd been holding those particularly things on my need list in error. I really really thought I needed them. Sometimes I thought I couldn't keep going without them. Sometimes I thought they were the things that made me, well, me!
And those times were way way too hard to hold on to. But I kept on thinking I NEEDED those things, because I thought that if I didn't need them, I'd lose them.
Then one day I crossed them off the need list. I stopped worrying too much about them. I stopped trying to share myself out between the real needs and the ones I'd kind of created. I thought I'd just sink then. Become one of the straights. Become a boring nobody. At first I thought I'd given in. That life's demands had robbed me of those other things, and that being ill now meant I had to let them go. To some extent I think this is true, but what has changed is how bothered I am by it. Or not so bothered. I think I came to realise that those things should have been in the WANTS list all along. Those things are supposed to be a choice, really. Not something you do because you feel compelled in order to feel whole. I realised a lot of those things were about proving something, and about seeking approval. I'm kind of proud to say I no longer give that much of a shit. Perhaps I'm entering that OLD PEOPLE phase, where you just aren't arsed what people think. Oh, I know lots of young people *think* they are in that phase. They aren't. They just want everyone to think they don't give a shit. It really isn't the same as actually not giving a shit. Not so much not caring anymore, more like not worrying about it.
Anyway, I'm there. At the "not too bothered" stage. It is amazingly liberating. Though I still expect the worrysome feeling to kick in any minute, it just doesn't seem to. Perhaps because when I think about what might happen if... , there really isn't anything to be scared of or worried about. I'm much happier being myself.
Do I still WANT it?
Oh hell yeah. And if stuff happens then it happens. If I get the urge, I write. If not, no big whoop. If I was asked to do funny stuff, I'd think about it, but I'm not worried about not doing it. I know I still could, I know that I did, I know that I loved it and lived it. I just don't feel like I have stuff to prove. That said, I love to entertain, to write, to interact, and I know that won't change. So yeah, I do still want it.
Do I Still Have it?
Well, whatever the hell "it" is, then as long as I live and breathe its gonna be there when I want it to be. It is gonna be there because its part of me, even more so now that I'm not doing stuff because I feel I need to. I'm doing stuff because I want to. Will I still be funny? This I don't know. Will it matter if they don't like me - Ahh that one I know - nope, it won't. I will be myself. I will be charming, I will revel in the humour I'm seeing, and enjoy sharing how I see things. I'll grin, smirk and chuckle at meself and my thoughts - whether anyone else joins in is academic. I'll enthuse. Its what I do. It might be contagious, might not be, but it won't change the fact that I'm enthused. I'll be fired up, animated, ebullient and i'll genuinely enjoy it. It's a given. A constant. Law. Of. Daisy. Physics.
So here's what is certain - I'll be fired up, animated, ebullient and i'll genuinely enjoy it.
And seriously, people, what the hell else matters?
Daisy xx
