Would previous you be proud of you?
I used to free write as a form of stress release when I was doing my masters.
It was a stressful time where I spent 7 days/week in the library. Prepping for exams, interviewing for competitive internships and uncertainty of the future took it’s toll.
Free-writing was therapeutic. Every morning on a blank page I’d write without an agenda until my thoughts stopped. I could be writing for 5 mins or 20, it just depended on how much was on my mind.
Over the past 4 years I’ve written 100s of these daily posts and the best part is reading them is like viewing a snapshot into a previous you.
It feels like remembering someone you forgot. They had different problems in life, a different mindset, their goals may now be your achievements.
They were a you that you no longer are.
The You that made You.
I think it’s worth sharing some of those previous you’s, because I just read one from a long time ago and he asked me a question that made me pause.
Would younger you be proud of you?
In Today’s Email 👀 (Read Time: 3 mins)
You’s from the past:
[Video] I did a bar show and no one was listening: here’s what happened
Comic of the week: Some call him the next Robin Williams
Would younger you be proud of you?
I think so.
I fear the day I don’t think he does.
Why?
Because it means I’ve let him down. He had dreams and aspirations and a vision that he entrusted me with and I wasn’t able to bear their weight.
But what about your dreams? Don’t they matter?
I don’t know. My dreams haven’t changed much, they’ve gotten more precise. It began with the need to stop being afraid. I hated living with dreams that I was too afraid to even speak about.
My dream was simple. I wanted to follow my fears.
Overtime that dream has shaped the what my life is today. Finding comedy was exactly that.
The culmination of my love for doing what I’m scared to do - public speaking
Making people laugh
Being the center of attention (ofc)
And doing something that most people would never be able to
So in a sense each of those Nishants from a previous post has brought me here today. One step at a time, chiseling away at the directionless mind, to find purpose and excitement and goals and a life.
How can I let them down?
Video of the week
I performed at a bar show recently and the opener absolutely bombed. It was a show where most people were at a bar and didn’t know there was going to be comedy and once it started wasn’t interested in it.
They are a nightmare for comics but I love these. It’s a different challenge.
Here’s what happened.
Comic of the week
I will quote a youtube comment to describe this dude and that’s all.
I can't tell if I'm watching groundbreaking performance art or someone's last 2 brain cells desperately clambering to make sense of reality.
Say hello to Casey Rocket.
- Talk soon Killers!