Be yourself.
Everyone else is already taken.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 – – – Oscar Wilde<\/p>\n
I grew up in a highly\u00a0competitive world. I started my dance training when I was eight, I worked very\u00a0hard, and I was accepted into The Harkness Ballet company when I was 16. In\u00a0order to be chosen, I endured an eight hour audition like the one in the\u00a0Broadway show, \u201cA Chorus Line.” My mother and I got up before dawn, drove\u00a0from Massachusetts to New York and we showed up at 9 AM at The Broadway Theater\u00a0in Manhattan on 53rd Street. The lobby was filled with hopefuls, two hundred and fifty of us, men and women, and I stood in line to receive a number that I pinned onto my leotard.<\/p>\n
When I stepped\u00a0into the darkened theater, several large spotlights were pointed at an empty\u00a0stage. A group of judges sat in the fifth row, watching. We were broken up into\u00a0groups of six and one after the other, we performed the routines they showed\u00a0us: various classical combinations en pointe, some modern dance and a little jazz to see if we could \u00a0remember steps we had seen only once and adapt to different styles. Then they began to let people go. \u00a0<\/p>\n
During each\u00a0elimination, we prayed not to hear our number called which meant we were being\u00a0sent home. We didn\u2019t look each other in the eye, the competition was so fierce,\u00a0and by early afternoon, half of us were gone. The physical exhaustion was significant,\u00a0but the mental exhaustion was brutal. At five o\u2019clock, five other dancers and I\u00a0stood on the stage, looking out into the darkness. They hadn\u2019t told us how many\u00a0they were looking for and I didn’t know if they were still eliminating.\u00a0Suddenly the lights went on in the theater, a woman stepped onto the stage and\u00a0said to us, \u201cCongratulations! You made it.\u201d<\/p>\n
We broke out into\u00a0smiles and took a good look at each other. We would all become best friends and\u00a0competitors. I ran over to my mother to hug her. An old life was ending and a\u00a0new life was beginning.<\/p>\n
The following\u00a0years of competing with other dancers and soothing each other at the same time\u00a0were confusing. Were we friends or foes? How could we be both? It felt like an\u00a0anomaly when we encouraged our fellow dancers, helped them when they were
lonely and vied against them for the best roles. When we were on tour someone\u00a0lent me her toothbrush. When we were in rehearsal, someone else strutted callously\u00a0when she was cast in a coveted role. We asked ourselves all the time: Is she better\u00a0than me? Is she thinner? Are her legs longer? Can she pick up choreography\u00a0faster than I can? Are her arches higher? I lost a role to someone I was close\u00a0to and I tried to hide my disappointment and feel happy for her. A next to\u00a0impossible task. When I was cast in a role we both wanted, I hid my emptions once\u00a0again because I didn\u2019t want to hurt my friend\u2019s feelings.<\/p>\n
This early\u00a0programming of comparing myself to other people, deciding if I was better or\u00a0worse, has followed me into my current life. I hate to admit that it\u2019s hard not\u00a0to compare myself to my friends whom I adore. I can\u2019t imagine what my life\u00a0would be like without them, but I still find myself thinking: Is she doing life better I am? Did she made\u00a0better choices than I did? Would I be happier if I was married and had kids\u00a0like she does? Is she better looking and more talented? The other side of the coin is just as damaging: I\u2019m doing
better than she is. I made better choices. I\u2019m alone and I\u2019m free. I\u2019m better\u00a0looking and more talented. But whichever side we embrace, we wouldn\u2019t be happy in someone else\u2019s life and they wouldn\u2019t be happy in ours.<\/p>\n
Making comparisons\u00a0isn\u2019t unique to athletes. Friends of mine who never lived in a competitive world\u00a0say that they have the same thoughts. It’s so hard to let ourselves just be \u2013 happy\u00a0or sad, successful or lost, kind or mean or any other feeling in the range of
human emotions. A mentor of mine keeps reminding me that we are like snowflakes,\u00a0members of the same species but none of use are the same, so what’s the point\u00a0of comparing ourselves to someone who is fundamentally different than we\u00a0are?\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a matter of valuing\u00a0ourselves and our choices, to let ourselves like what we like and dislike what\u00a0we don\u2019t with no apologies. When I worked with rock and roller, Grace Slick,\u00a0she was unashamedly herself at all times, for better and worse, outrageous\u00a0 or quiet, and I still try to emulate her authenticity. Rock Star, Jim Morrison, definitely a one-off, said, \u201cWhere\u2019s your will to be weird?\u201d We have to learn to embrace our quirks, the odd things that make us who we are.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to be\u00a0authentic enough to fit into our own skin, let alone try to fit into someone\u00a0else\u2019s. When I was a ghostwriter, my job was to become someone else as much as\u00a0possible, to sound like them and think like them and use words that they would\u00a0use. I got good at it, but I quickly learned that no matter how glamorous or\u00a0enviable their lives looked, they had their own brand of difficulties,\u00a0humiliations and disappointments. Stalkers. Public divorces. Nervous\u00a0breakdowns. Each time I finished a book and slipped off the invisible sheet where
I\u2019d been hiding, a sense of relief washed over me. I was so happy to be myself\u00a0again.<\/p>\n
For me, the way to\u00a0peace is to stop comparing and accept the choices I\u2019ve made. I imagine there\u00a0are people who compare themselves to me but I\u2019m aware that they don\u2019t really\u00a0know me. I may look content at first glance. I\u2019ve achieved some wonderful
things in my life, I live in a beautiful home and I feel happy sometimes. But\u00a0no one knows my trials and victories, my sorrows and my joys. No one knows how\u00a0I criticize myself and wish I were better or smarter or prettier or more\u00a0successful. No ones knows the things in my life that make glad to be me. Dance\u00a0legend, Martha Graham, told up-and-coming choreographer Agnes de Mille,
\u201cBecause there is only one of you in all time, your expression is unique. If\u00a0you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The\u00a0world will not have it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Win or lose, happy\u00a0or sad, satisfied or disappointed, every minute you spend wishing you had\u00a0someone else\u2019s life is a minute wasting yours. Social media draws people into a\u00a0fantasy. Everyone posts their best days, their best photos, the best meal they\u00a0ever had and how perfect their relationship is. For some of them, it\u2019s real, but
whether or not they\u2019re telling the truth is irrelevant to you. If you take your\u00a0focus off of what someone else is doing and look inward at your personal\u00a0vision, you\u2019ll be on the path to finding a way to love yourself, warts and all.<\/p>\n
Wouldn’t that be grand?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Be yourself.Everyone else is already taken. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 – – – Oscar Wilde I grew up in a highly\u00a0competitive world. I started my dance training when I was eight, I worked very\u00a0hard, and I was accepted into The Harkness Ballet company when I was 16. In\u00a0order to be chosen, I endured an eight hour audition like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2370,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions\/2370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}