I believe everything I have learned in life I have learned through performing. I have learned movement and body language. I have learned how to be humble and respect people. I have learned how to understand people who are very different from me. How to project what I am feeling or thinking. Almost every important lesson I have learned in life I have learned through performing.

It is a necessity in life to know how to communicate without words, and I do not mean through sign language. When you are in a business meeting or interview you need to know how to make a good first impression before you even speak. The best way to do that is to present yourself correctly in a way that says I am professional and should be taken seriously. When you are on a first date you want to show you are open and you don't want to come across as intimidating. You also want to be able to convey to the person if the date is not going well without flat out saying that things are going south. Body language, posture, and the way you carry yourself is how all of this can be conveyed without using words.

When performing you have to do the exact same thing. You have to learn how to convey deeper meanings through your body. Although I hate watching ballets, as do many people, this is a prime example of how you can tell a story without words. Everyone knows the story of the nutcracker even though there is not a single word spoken in the story. Another example of this is actors, this is the main way you make people you are a different person, and that is your body language. When an actor is playing someone posh and of high society they will carry themselves with better posture and with their heads held high. Even in a character's journey throughout a story you can see how even the way they will carry themselves changes from when the story first started.

In life one of the most important lessons you learn is that you are not “above” anybody in life. Just because someone may not have as good a job or position as you does not mean you should treat that person like they are garbage. Someone who is a maid, or a garbage man should be treated with the same respect as a CEO. People are people and at the end of the day a title means absolutely nothing. Everybody has an important role, it is just that someone in a higher position gets more recognition.

In theatre it is the exact same way. Everyone in the company is important from the lead to that one person who cleans the stage. If anyone is missing stuff just does not run smoothly. I was in a show and one on one of the show dates about ten ensemble members were out sick. We all had to quickly re-stage a bunch of scenes and dance numbers to make things not look like there were ten people missing. It's honestly something the audience may never fully realize but makes all the difference. Also if anybody in a company acts like a total diva, there is a 100% guarantee nobody will like you.

If there is one thing that is wrong with the world it is that everybody refuses to see things from other perspectives. This is a thing both liberals and conservatives are highly guilty of doing, all both sides seem to do is just say I'm right and not give any reasoning as to why they are right. In life you are going to meet people who you won't meet eye to eye on, and you will never understand how their thought process works. There are times you just need to see things from a different point of view.

In acting, when you portray a character, you have to have purpose for literally everything you are doing. In order to do that you have to understand what is going through the character's head. This can be especially hard when you are portraying a character completely different from you, whether they are unethical, regressive, or super insecure. You have to understand what the character is thinking and why they are thinking that way in order to give an authentic recreation of the character. You have to learn to understand a completely different mindset. You may not agree with the way the character thinks but that is not the point, you just need to understand the way they see things.

Life is filled with many beautiful things and feelings that we often celebrate those things and pretend the negative things and feelings don't exist. It makes total sense though why not just pretend everything is perfect and pretend nothing bad in our lives exists, then one day it we won't have to pretend and everything will be perfect. Sadly that is not the way the world works, our problems won't go away if we just pretend they don't exist. It's just very hard to do though, it's hard to have to deal with this rough and ugly part of our lives that we might feel ashamed that we have, but we all deal with it. It seems impossible to accept something so awful, what you might see as shameful about yourself, and accept it as a part of your life you have to handle.

There are so many people though who have turned the ugliest things about life like depression, heartbreak, death, and many other awful things that we all would rather pretend doesn't exist and make it beautiful. People make books, songs, and movies about these awful things in life and turn them into art. It makes us appreciate the good with the bad. It helps us communicate what feels so awful and disgusting about our lives. It helps us accept that in all beauty there is an imperfection that is just as much a reason something is beautiful. When I act and I'm doing a scene where the character is having a complete breakdown I definitely connect it to my own anger and frustration and I can convey all these negative emotions in a way that people will see as art.

Performing has taught me everything I've learned as a human. It's helped me grow as a person. I know that I can say so much without uttering a single word. I've learned that nobody is useless and that everyone should be treated with respect. I have learned to see things from another point of view. I have learned how to take the ugliest things about myself and make them beautiful. Everything we learn in life I've learned through performing.