How To Bounce Back Even If Not Entirely Made of Rubber

Rubbery People Make For Resilient People

"All's Well As Ends Better."

To all who visited and commented on my blog last week, I am doing just fine.  Thank you for your concern and for chiming in.  I appreciate it!  As the Gaffer said in The Return of the King, "All's well as ends better."

You see, one goes through challenges in one’s life and career, and one can never be sure where one’s journey will take one. But one thing one knows is that when the journey is done, one will have won one victory for one’s cause of oneness, because one’s one thing to remember is one thing and one thing only: one’s day will one day be wonderfully won.

Are there any questions.

Look, I am a sensitive guy.  Like you, I too, cry when I watch those heartwarming commercials about tuna fish...Bic razors…surfboards.  And especially those commercials about tuna fish using Bic Razors while riding surfboards.  I weep like a baby with the rest of them.  But when you take too many hits - even perceived hits - to your hull, it can weaken your structural integrity.  By “weaken your structural integrity” I mean when you drink a gallon of Turbo-Lax and are on the toilet until August.

That was where I was at (sensitive, I mean; not the toilet), and so I had to write about it.  Taking hits and perceived hits. So thank you for reaching out, all of you who did.  I appreciate it.  To all of you who did not, I know where you live and I watch you through your windows.  By the way those pants are not your size: you should really think about dressing in something less revealing.  And those socks you are looking for are behind the couch.

Bouncebacks from Setbacks

I cannot stand people who feel the need to label others as a “snowflake”.  It is appallingly presumptive and I just want it to STOP, OK?  Are you TRYING to hurt me?!?!?  But are we all not truly snowflakes, inside, really?  We get hurt; we cry.  Well, at least, YOU cry.  I do not cry since I had my tear ducts surgically removed. But we humans have been this way since the very first Snowflake Caveman accidentally poked another Snowflake Caveman in the eye with his Snowflake Club, and, stole his Snowflake Wife by pointing at her slyly and uttering, “How You Snowflake doooo?”

Men who call other men a snowflake are usually hiding something, namely, their own insecurity, and their own fear about being vulnerable.  It is far easier to call a name than to be a name.  It is classic diversionary tactics.  "Hey!  Hey!  Look at THAT guy...what a snowflake!!  Oh, me?  I'm fine!  But, NO, look at HIM!  WHAT A SENSITIVE BABY SNOWFLAKE!!!"  And then they return to their miserable sad lives, out of touch and disconnected from other men...independent...fragile...adrift...uh, kind of like a snowflake.

But have you ever taken the time to examine a snowflake?  They are:

• Stunningly beautiful, and
• Amazingly gorgeous, which means stunningly beautiful

So, in a way, being called a snowflake is more or less a compliment, because they are both amazingly gorgeous AND stunningly beautiful.  Individual snowflakes all follow slightly different paths from the sky to the ground —and thus encounter slightly different atmospheric conditions along the way. So says NOAA.gov.  “Therefore, they all tend to look unique, resembling everything from prisms and needles to the familiar lacy pattern.”  Which brings us right back to me watching you.  By the way you look great in that lace.

A snowflake is a gorgeous thing.  Sensitivity itself…is a gorgeous thing.  I mean it.  We should show our emotions.  After all, we are human.  Most of us anyway… I place Caitlyn Jenner in a different, far-off column that I lock in a box, seal in concrete and then launch into the deepest reaches of space.  But emotions!  They are powerful!  For instance, my wife asked me if I stole her thesaurus.  Not only was I shocked, but I was appalled.  Aghast.  Taken aback.  Gobsmacked.  I showed my emotions.  My feelings.  My sentiments.  My reactions.  *hides Thesaurus*

We have a comical phrase in our home when experiencing a potential affront: “You hurt my one feeling!”  As if we only have one feeling left to hurt, and are shallow people.  But still waters run deep, and I am a deep person who, uh, holds water.  In fact, my therapist told me I cannot even identify my own emotions, and I am not sure how I feel about that.

I was sensitive to consecutive bummers happening in my life. Cumulatively, the effect had me a bit downtrodden.  I needed to unplug, and I was not doing so.  I needed to take a breather, and I had not.  I needed to talk to a friend, but I forgot to pay the membership fee.  You see, I can rail against laziness, encourage untethering, and advocate for smelling the roses like the best of them, but sometimes advice-givers are not the best at taking their own advice.

Here is me giving advice.  And here is me in real life.

Yes, like that.

Physician, heal thyself.

How to Become More Rubbery

Even Elastigirl needed to pull herself together.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me take you on a journey through this magical world of voiceovers, and the side dish of depression that often comes with it. Yes, you heard that right, the world of voiceovers is not just about being the voice behind your favorite cartoon character, or that soothing voice guiding you through your GPS, it is also about the constant battle with depression and feelings of rejection.  Last week I used the word “snubbed.”  We can often feel snubbed when we are not cast, selected, featured or recognized. By the way, if you ignore military naval vessels, are they called snubmarines?  Sorry, dad joke loading...

As a voiceover artist, you are often alone in a small room for hours on end, talking to yourself, and, occasionally, to the fifty people on the other end of your headphones. This can be a bit lonely, especially for those of us who are not great conversationalists.  I too get lonely.  The lack of human interaction can lead to feelings of isolation and depression. And let us not forget the rejection that comes with voiceovers! You audition for a role, put your heart and soul into it, and pray you are cast, but often times never even hear back. Akin to being stood up on a date, it happens every day.

Something has to give.  We can only stretch so far.  But lest we forget the bright side of things, at least we are not performing colonoscopies all the live long day. Instead, I get to sit in a comfortable chair all day and talk to myself. It is more or less like being paid to watch TV and eat Cheetos, except I also get to lie to people and get paid for it.

The world of voiceovers is truly a wonderful and exciting place filled with endless colonoscopies.  I mean possibilities.  However: they also have the occasional bout of depression. But hey! At least we get to be a part of the entertainment industry and pretend to be someone else for a living, since we are all so incurably pathetic and sad. So next time you hear a voiceover, remember the hard work and the loneliness that goes into it from you, from me, and from all of our colleagues, and give a nod to the brave souls who make it all happen. Rubbery people, voiceovers we.

It is a daily grind to keep ourselves positive.  The voices in my head have voices in their own head.  It can truly be a mind game.  So what are some practical ways to maintain elasticity, be like rubber, and bounce back out of depression?

1. Talk to someone
2. Find a mentor
3. Consider the fact that you may be wrong in your assessment, or at least part of it.  That consideration opens the doors to truly moving on from grudges.
4. If you are doing too much, back off from a few activities like marketing or blogging or networking
5. Reflect on Turkey’s recent earthquake – that should put your emotional minutiae in perspective.
6. Donate money toward their (and other) relief efforts. Think beyond your own travail.  I did.
7. Use the world "travail" in a blog.
8. Go for a walk, get outside, enjoy nature
9. Get (or perform!) a free colonoscopy
10. This is a 10th bullet point.

Slights and letdowns, or perceived slights and letdowns, can happen every day. It is in the knowing how to mitigate said letdowns that we find our resilience.

For me, being a massive "Ringsgeek", one of the things that has really brought me a ton of joy is having joined the "Fans of Middle-earth" group on Facebook and enjoying (and posting!) the scores of hilarious memes there.  The geek in me screams for joy.  I even created my own fledgling LOTR fan group.  Join me?

There. You are welcome.  Now turn off the lights and close your blinds.  I am all out of popcorn and should really be getting home anyway.