Personal Narrative: A Career In Theater

One thing I do differently from everyone else is to set goals that are unattainable to reach. To most people, doing this might sound ridiculous, but attempting to rise to or above perfection allows me to become the best person I can be. While it may seem like I am the most extreme form of a perfectionist you can find, there is reason behind my madness, which all started with me being in theatre. I have participated in our theater program at my high school since I was a freshman. One of my favorite things about live theater is how much can go wrong. Every show has a little bit of chaos in it, and the screw ups make for great stories later. The trick to mastering this imperfect art is to make yourself better every single time you go onstage. I adopted this mindset from my director, Justin Harnden. If we ran a scene and it was worse than a previous time, he would simply say “not good enough” and make us run it again. The idea behind it was not to achieve perfection, but to become as close as possible to it. This method set his student’s bar completely out of reach, yet always just at our fingertips.
To an outsider, this mindset might seem self deprecating and harmful. I completely understand someone viewing setting unreachable goals as insane. However,
In the classroom, I constantly aim to get a one-hundred percent on every single test I take, no less. This requires me to know the information for each subject inside and out. Do I achieve my goal? Most of the time, no. It is nearly impossible to get a one-hundred on everything you do, and I recognize that. However, if I do not receive the one-hundred that I strive for, attempting to strive for perfection gets me pretty high marks. Is it ever good enough? No, but we must also be able to congratulate ourselves on things we have done good. An low A on a test is nothing to sneeze at, but if you set the bar there, that is all you will ever be able to