Pressure Cooker Me.


I put too much pressure on myself. 

I've always been driven. It's a blessing and a curse. Conversely, I'm instinctively lazy. This combination of apathy and propulsion may seem incongruous. It goes back to my original point; it may not be that I'm lazy, just that I'm never happy with what I've done. 

Even my blog is a case in point. Rather than being content to write something now and then when the mood took me, I told myself I had post something every day. If I didn't do this I wasn't doing enough. Reaching the milestone of my first year was satisfying, but this sense of pride was temporary; I instantly turned my mind to completing year number two. 

I've always had high expectations. When I was in a band as a teenager, I told myself that we had to be as big as The Beatles or I would have failed. It was as black and white as that, with no room for shades of grey. This all-or-nothing mindset was ridiculous in hindsight. 

The band started to do well around the time I left drama school. I was then offered a job as lead guitarist on a No. 1 tour. This led to another job, playing my hero Paul McCartney. The other band members grew tired of waiting for me and the band dissolved. I had to face up to the fact that the thing most important to me had ended of my own volition.

This ate me up for a few years. Then I started to edge away from music, towards comedy. This gave me new drive. With it, came a whole new set of expectations, aspirations, pressures and deadlines.

To be fair, I’ve been quite fortunate. I’ve had some great opportunities come my way that probably only happened because I was striving for something else. I never wanted to be an actor / musician (a horrible cut-and-shut job title, seen by many to mean you're not competent enough to do either aspect on its own), but it led me to front shows in theatres up and down the country, and got me into the West End. I never thought I’d attempt stand-up or run a comedy club and yet I stumbled into it. All these things left me feeling like a blagger and a bullshitter; like someone who'd snuck into a hospital with a scalpel and a white coat, manages to convince everyone he's a surgeon, then spends the rest of his life waiting to be found out. 

(I think I just accidentally paraphrased the plot to Catch Me If You Can.)

I constantly flit between thinking I'm good at what I do and thinking I'm awful. This frustration spurs me on, yet holds me back. I'm seldom in the moment; I'm already thinking about what I have to do next. It’s exhausting. If I could enforce one change in my life it would be to take a step back: to see what’s happening around me and to worry less.

This probably sounds horrifically self-serving and all ‘woe is me’. I know I could be a lot worse off. It may even come across as smug, arrogant, or like I’m looking for pity. I hope not. There I go again, over-thinking what I do. You should see how much angst I put into making a sandwich.

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