We live in a quick fix society, a one-minute video viewing world. As the Internet has grown at massive speeds of lightning our attention span has shrunk to a minimum. I know this from making on line content, the shorter the better because people are already on to the next thing before they even really processed the first. I have been a victim to this mentality, and it crippled my ability to accomplish anything for a long time.
Many many years ago when I was fervently racing after a career as an actress, I had so many ideas of things I wanted to do beyond just acting. But I would stop myself in my tracks thinking of how much time something might take. Even my desire to go back to school and get my degree just seemed too daunting, three years felt like a million and I just didn’t think I had the time. I wanted to start creating my own projects, write a book, and so forth, but got so caught up in the worry of time, that I never did anything. Then as the years went by, I realized wow, if I had started that project or had gone back to school it would be done by now. And that light bulb switch going off in my head moment changed my mentality for good! I decided I wanted to change the course of my life and begin accomplishing things I was proud of, so when two years had gone by I wouldn’t be sitting around wishing I had done something. I would be happy I accomplished something worthwhile. And thus became my career as a producer/writer/actor/entrepreneur/ artist/lover of life. I felt fulfilled for the first time in my life, because as the years went by I had more and more incredible accomplishments that I could be proud of. Instead of regretting my wasted time, I was proud of my time well spent.
A very clear example of my turning point that helped change my mentality was in the year 2005 I developed acid reflux disease. Not able to fly to Boston to visit my holistic doctor, I spent WAY too much money to see a doctor in Los Angeles. Upon my visit he didn’t even examine my body, he just prescribed me with the purple pill. Which I was well aware that that drug only masks the problem but doesn’t heal it. I walked out of his room furious, a couple hundred dollars poorer, and no solution closer to a cure.
So I started doing research, and began a slow, patient process of healing myself-drug free. I talked to my holistic doctor in Massachusetts and a few other holistic healers, and learned all I could about what acid reflux disease really was. And in case you’re wondering, it is when your stomach has moved up into your rib cage, and it literally needs to be removed. So I would lie on the floor with my knees up, taking three deep breaths into my stomach, on the fourth breath (holding it) I would place my thumb in between my ribs and push my stomach down as I exhaled. I could feel and hear my stomach releasing back to where it belonged. Repeating this procedure a few more times until I felt complete relief. I started frequently giving myself these “treatments” whenever I had an attack. In addition to “treatments” I became very aware of what I was eating, to figure out what was causing the problem. I had to change my diet, and weed out the things that gave me attacks. I stopped drinking coffee, alcohol, and eating fried food, temporarily, until my body was healed, and able to handle them again. Overtime I began to have less and less acid reflux attacks, and eventually I had none.
This process took me a full year, and it was life changing for me. This experience taught me discipline; my body was worth the time it took to heal it without further harm. Which in turn awakened me to the realization that my future needed the same kind of attention. My future was worth putting in the time it would take to create a better life for myself.
There is no such thing as a quick fix, and anything worth doing is going to take time and discipline. As we fight against a rapidly fast environment of give it to me now, tell me faster, do it quicker, we must learn the art of patience once again. It’s ok to slow down, take some time to think and cultivate your thought process, get your bearings and begin.
Life is a marathon not a sprint, and what you start today will come to fruition tomorrow. But as I have learned in my life experiences-first you have to get in the race at the start line!