The boys were more rough and tumble than usual at camp today. The campus where we are working felt more electric today, as well. LBIF was hosting their biggest yearly fundraiser, so the whole place was filled with cars and people abuzz with energy. I wonder if the electricity in the environment filtered down to us and our campers? I wouldn’t be surprised if the boys were conducting electricity!
By the time we returned to our RV, Beth and I were both exhausted and in need of some venting because we recognized something we don’t often discuss – our job requires us to endure a lot of emotional tumult around us and inside us much of the time. We absorb energy and we need to talk about it and let it go.
Like most performers, we are energy movers. When we are on our game, our job is to capture energy in a room and focus it.
This is nothing new. We both grew up in homes that were brimming with electricity, so we learned early how to exist in that environment. We can thrive when a room full of children are jumping with joy. Those are great moments. On the other hand, we also know what it’s like when the energy cannot be contained. That’s pandemonium!
My first real job was being a busboy at a busy country club in Westchester. Working as a busboy, a catering and then an à la carte waiter taught me how to work in a professional environment that could be very structured and serene in one moment and then absolutely bonkers in the next. Sometimes, we got “in the weeds,” restaurant speak for totally overwhelmed. That was early energy training that helps me now.
Often, we say that life is about learning how to operate while feeling discomfort. In my early years, I turned off those feelings in order to survive in personal or professional environments that scared me. Nowadays, though, I have stripped away most of the fear and I try my best to feel those emotions I used to escape. It’s hard and uncomfortable, but it’s what being alive is all about.
I don’t succeed all the time. Sometimes, I can surf the waves and other times I crash and burn. I still get in the weeds some days, but more often than not I can operate within a tumultuous world with the serenity that allows me to be my best Scott. Fortunately, I have tools, people and a Higher Power to bring me back in focus.
Sometimes, life can feel like walking up a big hill, but the climb is worth the trouble and the view from here, on a clear day, is wonderful.