I realized today that I have mastered the art of not stressing or freaking out about anything....or at least not sweating the small stuff.
I was in the middle of an audition today (I did well so they asked me to stay to read again) and went outside to put more money in my meter. Apparently I had been somewhat of an idiot and read the signs properly/paid attention to what time it was, so I found my beautiful blue car hooked up to a tow truck. 207 dollars and seven minutes with a meter maid--whose sense of humor was rather lacking...maybe because people call him a meter maid all day--later it had been liberated (not to mention the $150 parking ticket I now need to pay). I went back in the building for the second part of my audition and did great. Even better, the casting directors got to see that I'm calm under pressure and can laugh about stressful situations.
So what's the lesson here? Don't freak out. It won't help anything. Especially about things you can no longer control. Thank the Lords that my car hadn't been pulled away yet...then I would have had to take some $80 cab ride around L.A. in rush hour to a tow lot that probably would have been closed, I would have missed my next audition and my acting class, and had a generally shitty evening. And had I freaked out I wouldn't have done well in my audition and could have missed out on a great opportunity because of something I could no longer change. If a problem arises, solve it swiftly and calmly. You can always freak out later.
For some of you this might seem like obvious advice. For others, it might seem impossible. For the latter category, however, I say that it just takes practice. I used to flip at the tiniest of things, but I constantly worked on choosing to be calm and collected whenever I was confronted with a problematic situation. Practice becomes habit, which is what I have now. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go through my laptop off my balcony.
