Unconditionally

I had a short discussion with someone today about having amazing jobs that feel more like fun than actual work because you're doing what you love to do. At some point I said to the guy, 'Might just as well dream big, right?!'

After mulling that over for a while, I started wondering why I never dreamed big until I was well into my twenties. And it hit me. Before you can even have a big dream or any dream at all, you must give yourself permission to dream.

If you look at highly successful people, most if not all of them started out with nothing but a dream and then moved heaven and earth to make it real. How did they do that; motivate themselves to build a lofty fantasy into something concrete and tangible? They gave themselves permission to do so.

At some point whether consciously or not they said to themselves, 'This is my dream. I give myself permission to believe in it. I give myself permission to do the work.'

And these highly successful people did not to let themselves get discouraged by others or by set backs or their own insecurities because they gave themselves permission to believe in their dream unconditionally.

The ability to have such unwavering faith, to believe in yourself so unconditionally may come easy for some and it may take years of painful inner growth or therapy for others. But I believe we all have that ability and if we learned to tap into it, hold onto it and allow ourselves to believe and to do the work, just think what amazing things we all could achieve!

So give yourself permission to dream and to believe unconditionally, and do the work!

The ten 'greatest films of all time'

An acting coach of mine recently posted film critic Roger Ebert's blog post about his list of the ten 'greatest films of all time'. As usual in mainstream media when anyone is talking about the 'greatest films of all time' one fact is glaringly obvious to those of us who care. Ebert has been revising his list every ten years since 1972 and from what I can tell that fact has remained the same for now 40 years.

That fact is that not one of his ten 'greatest films of all time' is about a woman or women. Not one is written or even co-written by a woman. Not one of them is directed by a woman.

What Ebert's and many such lists* are telling us is that 

a) women's stories are not worthy of being considered among the best;

b) women writers' scripts are not worthy to be considered among the best;

c) women directors' films are not worthy to be considered among the best.

Equally, none of Ebert's so-called greatest movies are about people of colour or any other minority. Really, what they are about is white men.

I don't believe Ebert is being intentionally offensive. Maybe he can't even help it. After all, the film industry on a whole has been and is still telling us that films written and directed by (white) men, about and for (white) men are the only ones that can be commercially and critically successful and are worthy of our praise. Otherwise why is it so damn hard to make, go see and get awards for any other kinds of films?

Just look at what's on at your local theatre at the moment. Look at how few women writers and directors have won major awards for their work and how few films about women have garnered major awards and/or commercial success - or have even been made.