Day #34: The People That Count

Doing theater teaches you something.

It teaches you never to put a live lemur in your show regardless of how cute it is.

It also teaches you about counting people.

No, not people who count--like the Count, but rather, the value of people.

It's so easy when you have a small audience to feel downtrodden. I've performed in front of two people, and it's usually a big downer. You rehearse and rehearse for something, and when you're proud of it, you want it to be seen by millions.

Then four people show up.

So what do you do?

You treat those four people like four million people.

In the words of my idol, Miss Tina Turner--"They paid for the ticket, so you give 'em the full show."

Tina's lesson is a great lesson for the theater, but it's also a great life lesson.

The people that show up are the people that count, and you're doing those people a disservice by fretting over all the people who didn't show up.

I've always done that--not so much in theater, but in life.

I looked around and wondered who wasn't there. The first list I look at on a Facebook event I've created is the "Not Attending" list to see who I can get mad at.

What's the point in that?

Why not be glad there are wonderful, supportive people who love and appreciate me and forget about all the others?

It's sort of the social form of forbidden fruit.

We believe the parties we throw are so much better if the people who don't like us show up.

Does that make any sense?

Sadly, I think it does.

We forget to count the people that are there.

I always say that more than anything what we need from each other is presence. Someone needs to actually be there. The dangerous think about the age of disconnect and technology is that the value of presence is going down, down, down and nobody seems to notice.

Well, I'm going to notice.

I'm going to love the people that show up, and feel bad for the people who missed out.

But no animosity, only appreciation.

That's kindness that benefits everybody.

Hey, maybe I'm getting the hang of this nice project after all...