Making plans and telling people about them
August 8, 2017, 9:26 am
If you don't follow Max Landis on youtube, you should. He is an interestingly polarizing figure in pop culture today, and he makes videos that talk about screen writing and the screen writing process. He is a suddenly prolific writer. Go check his credits on IMDB. I bet you've seen one of the movies he's touched, and didn't even know it. Now, one of his continual points in his youtube is to never judge a movie by his name, because his script got chosen, even if the movie didn't follow it. But I tend to like the movies he's done. In terms of script.
That's a side topic though. I want to touch on his thought in the above youtube video. Never tell anyone your plans. If you started watching and stopped, go back and watch it through, it's less than 2 minutes. His most important thoughts come after the preamble. He says don't tell people your plans, until they're finalized. Don't wag your mouth about meetings and the things you're working on.
Don't follow his advice, and withhold your exciting developments, because people might judge you. You shouldn't care too much how people judge you. Follow his advice because of how it might end up making you feel. Bad. Don't put yourself in a situation of hyping up something that hasn't been confirmed, only to have to explain to someone later that it didn't happen. Not because they'll be disappointed, but because you will be.
I'm generally awful at following this advice. I have plans all the time. I want to do more art. I want to write. I want to play music. I want to practice my spanish. I need to practice my mandarin. I should clean my house. I'll work on an app this weekend. I'll exercise every morning. I'm going to eat better. All of these thoughts are fine in your head. But when you start telling people them, they put anxiety into your head space.
Now maybe you thrive on anxiety. Maybe you need the social pressure of failure to do great things. I can get behind that. But for me, I end up feeling like it doesn't help. It just makes me feel bad every time I'm not doing the thing.
I've been using a phrase more often in my life. "An appropriate amount of selfishness". I think selfishness gets a bad rap sometimes, because we are told we should care for others more than ourselves. But I am of the opinion that you can't care for anyone else, until you care for yourself more. I think you need to have an appropriate amount of selfish pride, selfish secrets, selfish joy, selfish time, and selfish gain. Care for yourself enough to give yourself the things you need. Be selfish enough not to hurt yourself for the pride of others.
I'm trying to live my life better and improve.
... ah shit, I just did it again, didn't I?