The Blind Leading the Blind

I’ve been pondering a career change. Although my part-time job in the call center of a Toyota dealership is very fulfilling and I have helped many customers make the critical choices between a Corolla or a Camry, Hybrid or gas, I’m not sure I’m really being challenged.

I’ve been researching becoming a Life Coach. I’m assured by many on-line resources, who want to take my money to teach me to become one, that it is a real profession and of great worth to the population in general. But how would I coach someone to get a life when I don’t have one of my own? Would this just be the blind leading the blind? (Hence the title of this blog post.)

If I’m going to help others follow their dreams, I better get some closure on mine. That’s what I’m thinking.

I had been looking at going back to school to become a real counselor but, sheesh, it takes years and I’m already old. Besides I have no money which is part of the impetus for a career change.

I thought about supplementing my meager income with a stable and satisfying job as an actor. We all know this is a lucrative career. Why, in my hey-day as a professional actor in Seattle I made up to $50 a week doing 7 shows a week of “Leave It To Jane.” Surely with inflation that has gone up to $55 a week.

Those two great ideas are based on life-long dreams that may not be as life-long as I thought. When is putting aside a passion, such as acting, not a sign of failure but a sign of maturity? I’ve never been accused of maturity so I’m not sure what it feels like, but I have felt failure. Are they different? Does maturity suck as much as failure? If so, I’m sticking with Peter Pan and refusing to grow up. Oh, who am I kidding, a 60 year old Peter Pan is shockingly sad and I could never fit in those green tights now anyway.

When is it all right to admit to oneself that you will never, ever move to NY, live in a dinky studio and study with Uta Hagen?  Is it okay now that Hagen is dead? Can I finally admit the real reason I never went was my pathological fear of cockroaches? When can I stop beating myself up for being a scardy cat and a big, fat wussy?

I never followed those dreams. Not to any conclusion. How could I possibly charge someone to let me guide them? To what? A part-time job in a call center?

Still, I wonder if I do have something to offer, if only as a cautionary tale. I could pull out all my press clippings (all three of them) and show them my videos of my fabulous career in Community Theater and scare them into taking a giant leap into their lives. Look what will happen to you if you don’t. Gives me shivers just thinking of the likely impact.

John Lennon once said that life is what happens when we’re making other plans. And it is true I have been alive these 60 years and I was doing stuff. It might not have been in a straight line toward a stated goal but some of it’s been fun. I guess. And I have had some truly wonderful moments in my life, not all of them centered on my kid.

I’ve been asking myself, what have I done that has given me great and lasting pleasure? I can think of two things, other than being a parent, which is the greatest S and M in life.(Should be "fiftey Shades of Parenting")

The first is watching sponsees flourish. I have had the supreme honor of working with sponsees in Al-Anon guiding them through the 12 Steps. Most of them never finished but three of them have. All three of them have vastly more pleasant lives than when they started. Not just pleasant –really fulfilling. They are happy and when they came into the rooms they were broken. 

Of course, being a sponsor is a spiritual position. I was not speaking with my own authority but that of the 12 Steps and a Higher Power. Still, I showed up every week, sat in the rooms with them, usually over more than two years, and helped. I did help. What a joy it was to help people who wanted help. I had tried to “help” all my friends and lovers over the years and their standard response was “piss off.” But these three women showed up, notebooks in hand, ready to take the next step, literally and figuratively. If I died now this would be my greatest achievement.

I also had a shining moment in the summer of 1990. I had started a small summer stock company in the coastal town of Newport, Oregon. We were in our second successful year of producing family friendly fare for the tourists and townies.

Because of a production I had seen of “The Miracle Worker” at my high school (thank you Kathy Paladino) I have loved that play forever. I never got to act in it but I decided to direct it that year. Would summer theater goers want to see a dramatic play after their Neil Simon? It turns out the answer was a resounding yes as every performance sold out. I had a great cast (thank you Annie Kaiser) and I think my love for the material shined through.

After a performance a grown man –in his 40’s probably –walked up to me. He was crying. He took my hand and thanked me for the play. It had moved him. To tears. And to take my sweaty summer hand. He thanked me. For directing a play I loved. He had been moved by a 50 year old play about a 100 year old story. No, it wasn’t Broadway. No, I didn’t make very much for directing it and the actors made even less for performing in it. But what a gift! To me.

Maybe I do have a little insight into following your heart. Maybe it’s not a grand plan but those decisions we make day to day just because our heart wants to. We don’t receive money, property or prestige. We get something better. We grow a soul.

Is that enough?