FORGET-ME-NOTS: FROM BLUSTER TO BUSKER

MIRANDA AT THE MARKET

STEWART AT THE MARKET

When it is 19 degrees below zero I am (inside) at the Centennial Market portrait busking.  I used to fancy myself as a brutto tempo busker but in real time and season I am not.

My theme today is: Talk is cheap -- Action is steep.   

And I can thank Marty Nemko's doctored version of HOW TO DO LIFE (31/03/18) for the inspiration of sorts.  Marty is regular contributor to Psychology Today daily blogs.  (And, Marty, please forgive me as I adjust your words to suit my argument of things to forget when truly wanting to be a planetary busker.)

• Forget about your passion.   “Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you” (Oprah); “I would rather die of passion than of boredom” (Vincent Van Gogh); “Chase your passion, not your pension” (American motivational speaker, Denis Waitley).  Yes, there are yogis and rishis, artisans and idealists among us, who are doing their own thing.  Such people are more romantic than pragmatic.  Such persons who are succeeding economically are the exceptions rather than the rule.  I like to think I am an aficionado when it comes to busking.  However, having children is the game-changer.  Once you have children, and those children attend public or private schools and grow into their middle class brand values, your wallet needs to comply and will be emptied.  I cannot imagine having raised my children on my monies from writing and busking.  Alas without any regret, I joined Corporate America and had a middle-class misadventure lifestyle. 

Here is what I now know:  Following your passion ought to be your hobby, not your job.  If your passion becomes your job it’ll be along the line, I used to like hiking until I joined the army!

• Forget about the interest inventories. Strong Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII) and the Myers-Briggs come to mind and … what a laugh!  Interest inventories are those testing instruments that purportedly measure a person’s preference for work activities.  Methinks the designers of these inventories have determined that we are simply mugwumps waiting for our career epiphanies.  My imaginary book, “Choosing a Career for Dummies” would be better than any interest inventory available to date.  (I’ve just googled my imaginary book and cannot help but notice that Carol L. McClelland beat me to it.  She has published, “Your Dream Career for Dummies.”)

Here is what I now know:  I suck at career counseling and I always tell this fib to clarify my stance on such counseling, I used to be in Engineering until I met Sonya, and now I’m a dancer.

• Forget about that job with status.  Jobs with status are for narcissists, not for those seeking authenticity.  Never mind the competition for such status is, in cliché fashion, fierce.A job with status is a job with a recognized and enviable professional standing.  Examples of jobs with low status are clerks and line-cooks, servers and house keepers.  Examples of jobs with high status are the chief executives and corporate managers, the ilk of physicians and psychiatrists.If status jobs were listed in a linear measure, buskers would be quite left, right next to the beggars plotted on the extreme left.   Successful artists, be they portrait painters or rock stars would be plotted quite to the right.  As in any standardized curve of accomplishment, the beggars to the extreme left and the artists to the extreme right would be not significant in the stats.  Saying this, however, rejecting the status quo of perceived career choices on any linear scale is certainly not to abjure the important aspects of anyone’s occupation. I’ll offer one more example to continue this not-to-seek status argument.  Here is what I know now.  A job with a non-government organization (NGO) will pay less than a government job, but here is the benefit. 

Here is what I now know:  As a counselor or therapist with an NGO has far less paperwork, and can spend way more vis-à-vis in-the-ditch with clients.

• Forget about being an entrepreneur.  Owning and managing your own business has a rather attractive connotation until the reality of working for yourself sets in.  Running your own business seems ideal until you realize the more you work the more you make.  And I must mention that marketing at the front end doing the billings at the back end are horrible chores -- job fodder for scriveners, not therapists.  I’ve often described myself as being a social entrepreneur when out busking.  When I guitar busk in Canada I always have my Schizophrenia Society of Saskatchewan (SSS) sign on display in my open guitar case.  Here is the deal.  I am busking for cause, because, I offer pro bono counseling services for those clients referred through the SSS.  Also, whenever the SSS needs musical entertainment (for example, the annual $100 per plate fundraiser dinner, aside from always famous key note speaker, I am the unknown but prime performer).

Here is what I now know:  I am delusional and I rationalize accordingly.

THE BAND, STRANGER (ON SAINT PADDY'S DAY ... L-R ... MARK, JAY, SELF)

• Forget about ageism.  I’d like to close with the last bastion of prejudice in the American workplace, ageism.  Ageism need not be an impediment, or rather, ageism is not an impediment.  Lack of competence and drive are the real impediments to lack of quality and production.  Two advantages of hiring older workers are that these people often know more of want they want in life (in my workplace I’ve only wanted to be a really good counselor these past couple decades) and they often have great work ethics (when compared to those emerging adults who are seeking the highest bidders for their professional wares in high and ripe economic times). Choosing a career is more often than not the career choosing you.   As a young adult I was a laborer until I got a university degree in English literature, and then I became a high school English teacher until I got a master’s degree in Psychology, and then I became a counselor.  And now I’m a hypnotherapist and a … busker.  Not-so-strangely I’ve a passion for both.

 Here is what I now know.  It has taken me until middle-age for me to realize the execution and the limits of my passion. 

I was walking the market in Nelson, British Columbia, and could only notice the buskers.  There was an accordion player, a karaoke wannabee, and a guitar player.  The accordion player had one hundred and fifty bass keys of talent; the karaoke guy had no talent; the guitar busker was meh.  Not-so-strangely, I was attracted to the notion of being busker and had to decide whether to hug an accordion or pick a guitar.  I know how to play the accordion (I took lessons for eight years), but guitar busking is so very cool. 

I liken accordion busking to busking with bagpipes … somebody stop the insanity!  Here is my out-of-character joke for this entry and by no means is this a negative comment toward my friends who play accordions and bagpipes.  Note that I'm apologizing in front of an insult.  If a person is standing on a tenth floor balcony having an accordion in the left hand and a set of bagpipes in the other and … that same person drops both instruments over the balcony at exactly the same time and … keeping in mind the rate of falling is 32 feet per second2 … will it be the accordion or the bagpipes to hit the pavement first.  And the answer is “Who cares … as long as both instruments hit the pavement.”

While busking in Limerick, Ireland I borrowed a guitar from Michael Payne, a hypnotherapist I met by chance when asking for directions.  Receiving local directions from Michael changed the direction of my life.  Michael was an online-trained hypnotherapist who had been plying his practice for thirty years.  In conversation after divulging to Michael that I, too, was trained in hypnotherapy, academically trained in graduate school at my university, Michael convinced me that I, too, could become a hypnotherapist.  I love Michael.  He’s intelligent and witty; he’s personable and a fitness fanatic (he has a weight room next to his office), and … he strums a guitar.

HYPNOTHERAPIST, MICHAEL PAYNE

A busker is a street performer for which a passer-by can make a voluntary donation.  With my guitar and harp or my didge and clave or my sketchpad and pencil my evil plan is to be a planetary busker.

TALK IS CHEAP -- ACTION IS STEEP. 

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY! 

HAPPY EASTER!

And here are those marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

NHL SCOUT, BRAD HORNUNG (CENTER), WITH A COUPLE OF OLDTIMER FANS