Sharika Roland

there is a great video on youtube of 4 guys on treadmills singing and dancing to a song they wrote. they are ok go.

I love that name. Its like get on your mark, get ready, go.

Now I like to play what if with ok go.

What if every idea you had you immediately did?

What if you had no time for fear of failure??

What if you had no one to stop you but yourself??

All of the above can be true and doable if you do these three things. Ask yourself

What is the biggest brightest idea you ever had. What is the most impractical idea, What is the most logical idea.

Mix them together and ok go.

I have to remember all the times things worked out at the last minute in my life. About eight million times. Why is that so hard to remember when something else happens.

Rule for me when anything happens that is unexpected.

!. remember all the times before that turned out good

2. Dont blog about it because it makes it bigger than it is

3. Dont get upset and freak out because then you cannot think straight. Freaked out thinking is never never never smart. It is always always always over reactive.

4. Let time pass before jumping to conclusions.

5. Be proactive

All this I would tell someone else .

It is like a paintings that is not coming together and is exasperating me. I might be one second from seeing what the painting wants. One second.

One second.

I have to be a CEO. not a worker.

I am not working at a job I am driving a company that is me somewhere. I have to be calm and smart and have a brilliant plan.

Seeing yourself as the boss of a company is way way way better view of reality than just a worker bee. If you are just a worker in your life then you will always be reactive to the boss who who think is someone else, But reality is you are the boss. YOU are the boss.

Here is a question for you. If you have some big thing happen to you in your life that looks like it is slamming the door   on a plan that you have, is it directional or is it just another obstacle?? How do you know???  Do you turn left or plow the obstacle down?

After much contemplation, I think you should plow it down with all your might and if you still can’t budge it then it must be directional.  That is what I am going to do with my France thing. Which means I have to sell more art in the next two weeks than I have over the past two months.

How am I going to make the market better?  I can’t.  But what I can do is make me better and pray. When I grew up, I was surrounded with brothers and sisters who knew how to fight to get things done. That is one thing my Dad taught us. How to fight for your dream. Well I am going to have to do that now every way I know how. I am going to take my own advice – from this blog. I wrote this blog and I better reread it.

What I have to do is not impossible but I have never done it before. I think this is an obstacle that will make me stronger. If I am wrong then it was directional but at least I gave it the old college try. I need more like an olympic try.

I need feedback on this blog.

photo by this person

When I was really young, I did not know there were any limits. I was 18 and I wanted to start a dance company. I would call it absurd ballet in America because I did not take dance lessons so I thought I would be a purist dancer. I thought knowing nothing was good.

I called it absurd because I figured that if I called it that it would give me license to do anything and still call it art .I had read Gertrude Stein and figured that if she could be called a great writer when she wrote almost intelligibly, and Man Ray could do bizarre things and get away with the same thing, I thought I could too. My high school experience helped me also think I could do anything too.

I marched into the Paramount Theater and told the manager there that I was going to do this great performance so he better get ready. Then I put an ad in the paper looking for dancers. I actually got responses from dancers to do a show at the Paramount. At that point reality kicked in and I freaked out and didn’t do anything about the dancers. I did not even have a studio to practice. I thought that would magically appear when I needed it.  Looking back. I wish I had attempted it. I do not regret everything I did up to that point and I think I could have pulled it off. Now that I am old I think that the pure synergy of that wild idea might have turned into something.

Like my webmaster has said before sometimes pure audacity has power. It is really shocking that I got as far as I did with the idea. I can’t believe that the manager of the paramount talked to me seriously. I can’t believe dancers called me. I wish I would have jumped. Ahhh I wish I would have jumped. I better jump now before it is too late. Too late being dead and that is the only time it is too late.

I did a painting to commemorate that experience.

photo is this guy’s wife.

We all are afraid of risk. I am thinking what if I do not sell really well in France and I have spent all my money to get there etc. What if I fail, What if nobody likes my work. So what/ Life is not about money. Life is not about being pain free, Life is not about safety. If you want all those things then stay home and hoard your money and stay  under the covers where it is warm and comfortable. Life is one hundred percent a risk. At least in our minds.

But here is the reality. We are not in charge of life. God is in charge of life. He can take you out in two seconds and then all your risk analysis is for nothing. He also can let something happen to you that you could never have foreseen. A tsunami, an earthquake, a flood, lightening, an aneurysm. You are done. It is over for you. No more time. Business Plan gone. The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.

The moral of the story is Plan but do not worry. There is nothing you can do to really make life predictable and risk free. Nothing. Make sure you are going to heaven by trusting in the Lord because that is the biggest thing to worry about. The rest is small potatoes.

photo by this person.