Stephanie Riven
Life Lessons for Everyone in the Arts
Posted by Dec 21, 2011
Stephanie Riven
Perhaps you have been following David Brooks’ series of op-eds in The New York Times. He asked people over 70 to send him “Life Reports” -- essays about their own lives and what they’d done poorly and well.
No need to wait until we turn 70 to reflect on these "life lessons” and devise our own, especially as we approach the time for New Year’s resolutions.
Formulating lessons are important for all of us who work in the arts, whether as a performer, an administrator, an advocate, or an educator. These lessons are especially important because of the nature of our field -- low wages, long hours, competition for jobs, among other obvious challenges.
What can we learn from Brooks and those who submitted “Life Reports?”
Divide your life into chapters: Brooks talks about “the happiest of his correspondents being those that divided time into (somewhat artificial) phases.” He describes these people as those who could see time as “something divisible into chunks” and they could more easily stop and self-appraise. This approach, he says, “gave them more control over their lives.”
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