Tony Hale is best known for his career breakthrough role on Arrested Development.
What it took him to get there, I’m sure, is what it looks like for most artists: surviving rejections, overcoming obstacles, perseverance, and commitment.
What was surprising (not really!) is what it looked like once he arrived.
Disappointment. He said, “It didn’t satisfy the way I thought it would, because of all the expectations I placed on it.”
Whatever that “big” thing is that we place far out into the future – whether it’s moving to Los Angeles, booking the “dream” job, getting the girlfriend, finally getting married, signing with the perfect agency – anything that we think our happiness is predicated upon our achieving – constantly keeps us at odds with being happy now.
Happiness isn’t in a thing. It’s in our state of being.
Happiness doesn’t come later. It abides in us now by becoming more present with who we are. Right now.
Mr. Hale said he has a friend who tells him, “You have to wake yourself up 100 times a day to where you are.”
When our expectations, plans, and ideas about how we think things should look, clash against where we are (which also includes where we aren’t) – the recipe for unhappiness is easily attained.
And this can be compounded in the entertainment business because everyone is constantly asking us, “What’s next for you?”
As if where we are isn’t enough. As if where we are shouldn’t be celebrated or fulfilling. As if we have to constantly be fast-forwarding to something else. Somewhere else.
And actors have it doubly hard because so much of our identification is quantified by how much we are (or aren’t) booking. So when someone asks us what we’re doing and we can only answer in grey areas – “I’m good,” “I’m auditioning,” “I’m still plugging away,” we get down on ourselves. We compare ourselves to other careers that have an A + B = C timeline. Other jobs seem to yield tangible results. So when we go through periods where no results are being generated we panic, thinking we’re doing something wrong.
A life in the arts doesn’t follow “normal” trajectories. (And thinking it does, can be yet another reason we postpone our happiness.)
If you don’t practice joy where you are it’s not going to happen once you get whatever (or wherever) you think you need in order to be happy.
Mr. Hale goes on to say, “We’re trained to be looking for the next thing, rather than just learning to be.”
The greatest cause of suffering is our incorrect belief that we need something that we don’t currently have in order to be happy.
So cut yourself some slack, get present to where you are right now, enjoy your journey and stop comparing your life to an expectation in your head that can never be fulfilled. Once you do, you’ll start fulfilling yourself (!) and anything that comes in addition to what you already are will just be icing on cake.