"this is show business"

I post this for a couple of reasons which i don't mind sharing about (since this is of course what a blog should be about!)

when Ryan Seacrest started to taunt Simon Cowell about dissing Taylor Hicks during the auditions when he's obviously, the American Idol now (given objectively by his performance for the final two), I wondered at what Simon was going to say... until he mentioned that "this is show business".

i thought to myself that he could mean either of two things (or he merely wants to confuse and get everyone to stop their taunts):

1. this is show business, we're wrong sometimes

2. this is show business, sometimes you say what you don't mean so that it gets more interesting for the audiences...

now i thought this was interesting to look at given the workshop during LPC that I had just attended, conducted by Jasmine. The workshop was called "Dealing with inadequacies". much as i am apt to wonder at the subtle touch to the title, given that the world "inadequacies" was used in place of otherwise, "insecurities" or "inabilities", i shall try not to delve too much into those.

i was just reflecting on what i had learnt (until the statement which caused me to want to blog for no good reason but to think aloud):

* Feelings of inadequacies are feelings
* They arise due to expectations (of oneself, by others and 'expected expectations from God')
* They arise due to comparisons that we make with others
* They arise due to past experiences we had as a child (maybe our chinese-families didn't like to praise us much but much tended to criticize, or failures, or successes)
* Failures make us shun tasks
* Successes make us do so too, because we feel that we cannot do better than before and the expectations are higher then...
* The enormity of the task and its requirements

and so, we react, by:

* getting frustrated, angry and nervous
* putting others down
* further dwelling in inadequacies with more comparisons, and over-acknowledge them
* ignoring the inadequacies (and not dealing with it)
* packing our schedules with tons of activities to 'forget facing it'
* sinning, since we're 'crap' anyway
* blaming God and others
* rejecting the tasks and running away
* and lots more examples which i can't think of at the moment... but maybe this list gets you thinking and going...

we need to deal with it by:

* having a paradigm shift in focus (from the task and ourselves, unto God)
* making the choice to claim God's promises even though it seems impossible and tough
* remembering that we're not endowed with everything because one of us is the hand, the other is the feet, we need each other in the community
* not being the best at it doesn't mean we're not good at it, similarly, not being good at it doesn't mean we cannot do it right
* acknowledging the measure of success and failure of God (which is very unlike the measures of men)
* acknowledging the feelings of inadequacies (because it's through these moments we find ourselves needing and communicating with God more)

They are "feelings of inadequacies" and not "inadequacies"

It is "dealing with inadequacies" and not "dealing with inabilities" or "dealing with insecurity"

security comes from God, ablilites comes from God, but feelings of inadequacy comes from within ourselves...

so how does this link to show business? you know how the saying goes that life is a stage and we are but its actors? in life we most definitely have our success and mistakes... yet sometimes instead of acknowledging our wrongs, we choose to say that we said things at certain points in time due to the circumstances, but reality we were wrong. and this stems from a pride that we need to acknowledge. pride is always a manisfestation of feelings of inadequacy.

i know my chain of thoughts run long... but i don't think it's that hard to link it all up, is it?