Up the Down Escalator
Essay
In many ways, living life is like walking up a down escalator. The momentum of the escalator is pulling you downwards, while you are trying to climb up to the top. If you go about it casually, you will still go backwards. With a little more effort, you will go nowhere. It takes concentrated focus and energy to overcome the downward momentum of the escalator and actually get anywhere.
This can also be said of a career — any career, but especially that of an artist. There will be bumps along the road for sure. It’s how you react to the bad days that makes the difference between a winner and a loser.
Good days are easy. They’re good. You wake up feeling energized and ready to conquer the world. So, there’s not much to say here other than take advantage of those days to the max.
It’s the bad days that trip us up. Those days, the down escalator feels like someone hit the high speed button. It’s hard to get out of bed. Career feels hopeless. There is no apparent purpose to anything.
Perfect. Here’s your chance to take charge, and force yourself out of bed and into action. You could go to the gym. Go on a hike. Study. Do anything you can to extrovert your attention.
And do something productive for yourself and career.
At first, it will feel terrible, useless, so difficult. That’s okay. Make yourself keep going. Again, that downward escalator is pulling you backwards. On days like this, it’s on high speed. What are you going to do? Give in or fight your way to the top.
If you decide to fight, you will start to make progress and before you know it, you’ll also start to feel better. Eventually you’ll have a breakthrough. Perhaps book a role. And you’ll remember why you got into acting in the first place. Your purpose will get a revival.
So, how you react to the bad days is key. Remind yourself what you love about acting, and why it’s important for yourself, your friends, family and the world that you do this. Get out of bed and go. You feel horrible — so what? Go! Get something done, no matter what.
Keep this policy in and the bad days will become fewer and the good days more frequent.
And you’ll find a switch for that nasty down escalator; flip it, set it going in the right direction. Up!
— Isa Totah
