Build Your Boat

One beautiful sunny day,

I was sat in Sydney park

With my best friend.

We’re both actors.

Two very different careers.

On this occasion,

We were discussing my career.

How it was going.

Where I was at.

Where I wanted it to go.

And as we spoke,

A sense of deep frustration gripped me.

A dark feeling of envy.

Let me explain.

We’ve both been professional actors

For over fifteen years.

Some problems we share.

Some problems we have are very different.

For as long as we’ve been professional actors,

One problem I’ve consistently encountered is:

Opportunity.

Or lack, thereof.

A feeling, I’m sure a lot of actors will relate to.

I always felt

His career afforded him

more opportunities than mine.

And there is a degree of truth to this.

While I might complain,

Feeling desperate about only

having had three auditions in the past 6 months,

He might complain about

having 3 auditions in two days.

So as we spoke about opportunities

I felt some all too familiar jealous pangs.

And as we were discussing me,

And where I was at,

I kept going around and around in circles.

The only way I could describe it was:

Stuck. Waiting.

And as I sat there,

Stewing, frustrated that my career

Wasn’t where I wanted it to be,

He asked if I would indulge him

In an exercise.

In my notebook,

He asked me to draw a picture

Of what that feeling looked like.

Okay…

I thought for a few moments.

Then spent five or ten minutes

Sketching out the first thing that

Came into my head.

After I’d finished,

He asked me to talk about

What I’d drawn.

Looking down at my picture I saw:

A little row boat.

Sitting on a lifeless lake,

Just drifting aimlessly.

With no oars.

I didn’t know how to explain it…

He said:

“What are you going to do about it”?

Then…

He walked away.

And I just sat there.

Staring at my stupid picture,

Feeling like an idiot,

Holding back tears.

I was so angry at him.

For leaving when he did.

I was in disbelief.

He left right when we were

At the heart of my problem.

I said to myself:

“How could he just walk away

Without figuring this out”!?

And so I just sat there.

In silence.

Staring at the picture.

For what seemed like hours.

After a while,

I began to feel a sense of

Shame.

Because I knew…

The boat was me.

Aimless.

Waiting for something to happen.

No way of moving forwards.

Stagnant.

My career, it felt, was going nowhere fast.

Eventually I picked myself up

And wandered out of the park,

Muttering under my breath:

All the way home.

It wasn’t until weeks

(And a lot of frustrated contemplation)

Later,

That it struck me…

I open my notebook,

And looked at my picture.

A boat.

With no oars.

It clicked.

Immediately

I got out my pen,

Sketched some green oars

Onto my little rowboat

Then sent an email to a friend

Saying I’d like to produce his short film.

***

What’s the lesson?

I had been staring at a boat

With no oars.

No way of moving forward

No way of getting anywhere.

And there was nobody around

Who was going to do it for me.

The answer became so obvious:

Build them yourself,

And start to row.

A quick Google

Defines “opportunity” as:

A time or set of circumstances

That makes it possible to do something.

Or

A chance for employment

Or promotion.

I had been looking all this while,

Through the lens of the second definition.

Waiting for the chance.

Waiting for permission to act,

Waiting for the email to hit my inbox.

Waiting for the phone to ring.

And feeling like I was never getting

The chance to be employed.

What I realised is that

It is entirely within my power

To create the set of circumstances

To write, create and act in work,

That is fulfilling.

As in the first definition.

Which is exactly what we did.

That year I produced and acted in a short film

That was short listed for Tropfest

On a budget of $250.

Not bad for my first ever attempt.

***

There will be times when work will flow

Auditions be plentiful,

And acting feel easy.

It’s the beautiful dream.

But

Simply being gifted

Extraordinary stories to act in

And be paid for it all year round

For an entire career

Exists for less than

1% of actors.

This can be a challenging

Idea to accept,

Particularly early in a career.

It’s true,

It’s not fair.

But who said it would be?

Up until that moment in the park,

I realised that I’d

Moving through my career expecting

To be handed opportunities.

But where do opportunities come from?

You.

You are the person,

The only person,

Who can build your boat.

The industry owes us nothing.

If I want to be an actor, writer, maker

It’s up to me to live a life of service

To the art I want to pursue.

So.

Don’t wait for permission to act.

Build a set of circumstances

When you can act.

A fringe show, indy theatre,

Friends have literally put on shows

In their backyards or garages.

It can be done.

Don’t wait for permission to write.

Just write.

Do the shitty rough draft.

Because once you have that,

You have a commodity.

You have something valuable to offer the world.

You want to make something?

Find friends, talk, write, do, make, create.

Just do.

I say again:

It doesn’t have to be “good”.

It just has to committed to

Until the end.

Create for yourself,

The set of circumstances

That will allow you

To do the thing you love.

It’s as simple as that.

We’ll all be dead soon.

So why would you not?

If you remember one thing form this article,

Remember this.

You can’t miss the boat.

You have to build your own and row

Like no man’s business.

Have fun out there.

D x