Worst case scenario

Nowadays, I do this thing and I am not sure if it is a good idea, but it kind of works for me. Whenever I am stressed out about something, very often I realised I'm paralysed by fear and then I do nothing and things get worse. So what I do is I ask myself what is the worst case scenario, and then I feel okay.

For example, I'm kind of stressed out about a a show tomorrow. Me, Tuck and Juliana will be performing stand up on a Saturday morning in a museum to a general public that probably doesn't know what stand up comedy is or even understand English. Worst case scenario: We bomb (happened before), we forget our jokes (not likely, if we are getting laughs, and if we are not getting laughs, jokes aren't gonna save us anyway), or we offend someone (highly unlikely for me nowadays, and also, it has happened before). Whatever happens will be something I have survived before. We're doing it for free anyway, so they organisers should be pretty understanding if things go south, and if they're not, fuck them. The worst case scenario is really not bad at all.

In the end, I am not really scared of the worst thing that could happen. I am just letting the uncertainty and anxiety build this paralysing fear that is bigger than my fear of the worst thing that could actually happen.

Life is okay.

I guess the other thing I should do is ask myself what can do I about it and what can't I do about it.

I can prepare a set and prepare to bomb through it for 15 minutes (which whenever, I do, I usually end up doing well, ironically). It's easy to kill. It's hard to bomb and remember your jokes for 15 minutes straight, so if I do that, I'll pat myself on the back for a prep well done. I know I'll probably end up not doing that and end up talking to the crowd to keep it casual because nowadays my fear of awkwardness has overtaken my fear of deviating from my pre-written jokes.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. 

What I can do: Prepare my jokes and rehearse and have that in my back pocket in case I really do need to bomb through my whole set.

What I cannot do: Control the outcome of the show.

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