Challenging the mind.

In some way I have always been somewhat jealous of people with routine - people who have the discipline to run a few miles every morning, who always read the newspaper and take the dog for three daily walks. Some of the people who do this can do it because they don’t have a lot going on in their lives, while many others are able to do it precisely because they have so much going on. Their life’s framework may be provided by their careers, and although they don’t do the same things every day, they have very disciplined ways of organising their lives, sometimes even making themselves do their required reading while on an exercise bike to ensure they take care of two necessary things at once, like Nancy Folbre, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts and MacArthur Award recipient.

I can’t seem to get into a routine at all, and in some way, I think I can’t do it because I want every day to be different. One of the things I love about voice-over work is that I usually have no idea what the day will bring, and whether it’s a big job or a small one, it’s almost always interesting and challenging. Last week I had two commercial spots to do for a new client in rural Michigan. The ads were for local businesses and had the potential to be quite ordinary, but they were far from it – one called for switching attitude several times within sixty seconds and included a quote from Micky Mantle, which gave me the opportunity to do a bit of research on Mantle and find a videotaped interview so I could hear what he sounded like. The other one required me to be the Easter Bunny! My client told me to get the recordings to him “whenever”, so I took a leisurely approach so that I could wait for the right Easter Bunny voice to come to me. The next day the producer emailed in a panic that the spot was airing after the weekend and did I need another copy of the script? So that Easter Bunny voice came to me in a flash and the job was quickly dispatched (you can hear the finished spot here). It was kind of a wild day, a lot of stuff going on. If I needed a lot of structure to my day I would probably be very frustrated. I did manage to get to my karate class but had to leave audio files uploading – something I don’t like to walk away from in case a problem occurs but I really needed the karate to help me unwind!

This weekend I tried climbing at a climbing wall. I’ve taken my kids to do this a number of times but had never tried it myself. Heights make me very nervous so I had to push away thoughts of fear and focus on the benefits and the physical challenge of it and was at the top of the wall in short order, ready to try a more difficult route. I couldn’t manage the harder route despite trying three times (I got to the top but had to use one or two footholds that weren’t on the route – of course the metaphor this offers for one's career path is obvious!) but am looking forward to going back next weekend and trying again. The people doing the belaying were college students and one of them has created her own major: wilderness studies, which I found simply fascinating. Now there is someone who is focussing her life on the unexpected and challenging. She will be leading wilderness trips and helping other people to achieve challenging goals, and I imagine this will require the ability to create structure and follow routine while being prepared for anything to happen. The ultimate in discipline! Something I don’t think I could ever do. In my life, being prepared for anything to happen is more about voice-over right now. This means having the discipline to follow a routine in certain areas, like making sure I am always contacting new people every week and following up. It includes challenging the mind with stuff directly related to voice-over, such as taking workshops or private training when finances allow or, something I’m doing right now, taking a dialects course in the university’s theatre department or (later in the year) more German, Spanish and French classes. I’m teaching myself to play the piano, which is not only great for exercising the mind but it’s wonderfully relaxing (and the dog loves it). And finally, pushing myself out of the house and into the world to try new things keeps me flexible and increases my ability to meet the unexpected and make the most of it.

Oh, and I almost forgot – it’s fun! See you at the top of the wall!