Teens these days.

(Photo: Carol Kaliff, Hearst Connecticut Media)

Today kids across America walked out of school to protest gun violence and the inability for our government to pass common sense gun control.

That’s incredible. I can only imagine being a government & politics teacher, or any other branch of history/American studies, and witnessing your students actively participating in and organizing peaceful protests. Or deciding not to participate because they didn’t agree with the protests. Either way, it’s a teach by doing moment. It’s teaching kids to be actionable instead of simply memorizing facts or spitting out theory.

Facebook is flooded with posts of alum, teachers and parents talking about the school walkouts or walk ins, where assemblies are being held in memory of the students killed due to gun violence. CNN is live-streaming the walkouts and the words of our CT Senator Chris Murphy. Across the nation kids are holding up signs stating their beliefs and desire for the adults in charge to be actionable. They are no longer complicit and trusting that adults will get the work done. The Parkland students showed them that their voice matters even when they are unable to vote. That you don’t have to wait until you’re 18 to voice political opinions.

I was young for my grade and didn’t turn 18 until I was in college. I remember being furious that I couldn’t vote in the primaries that year, even though I would be 18 by the general election. I was always highly opinionated when it came to politics, thanks to my mother who was always a well-informed citizen and my brother, who walked into the Democratic Headquarters at 16 to start volunteering. I would tag along with him, making calls to remind democrats and independents to vote, checking in on our elderly residents to see if any needed rides to polls, attending Chris Murphy’s debates when running for Congress, joining the Young Dems chapter my brother helped start and my favorite part of the process: going from poll to poll on election night to watch them count then ending back at Headquarters or a restaurant to hear the results roll in. I couldn’t vote, but I was more engaged in the political process than most adults.

Which was why I was furious when adults would undermine my intelligence in my teenage years. I would often hear that my opinions, and the opinions of my peers, were just echos of my family’s beliefs. I understand the thought, and recognize that may be true in some cases, but I could never understand why my civics teacher would take so much time explaining our nation’s workings to us, only to tell me that my opinions were just something I inherited from my parents when I got in a fight with a classmate over Bush’s reelection. Of course my family influenced my beliefs, but I was also smart enough to research and act on my own. I was old enough to hold opinions.

I remember a car ride where my mom and brother were talking a politics. I listened without much input, thinking instead of my recent civics lesson on political parties.

“What if I’m a Republican instead of a Democrat?” I asked my family.

I was constantly the lawyer of the family. I always wanted to think about situations from a different angle. A contrarian, always thinking of the other side before agreeing with my family.

“Your beliefs line up with the Democratic Party,” my mom replied.

“But what if they don’t? What if I’m a Republican instead?” I asked.

“Then you can be a Republican.”

I went home and did all the research I could on both parties. I spent hours trying to understand the difference and political platforms. I weighed policies against my moral beliefs and found that I did side with the Dems.

All of this was done my freshman year of high school. Clearly I was already intelligent and thoughtful enough to question my beliefs and recheck them against my political affiliation. My thoughts and opinions haven’t changed much. They evolved slightly with the times and my maturity. Whereas I used to think we should eliminate marriage entirely, calling everything a civil union, so we can eliminate the religious context of marriage, I’ve realized that battle gets misconstrued and calling everything a marriage is a better angle. I used to be much more fiscally liberal that I am today. I used to be pro-choice under medical necessity but am now entirely pro-choice. Tiny tweaks, but my adult mind is still in line with my teen mind.

So I still get angry that I was always underestimated. That adults did not believe that I researched my policies enough. To be fair, this still happens. I was constantly accused for siding with Hillary instead of Bernie because she was a woman, when in reality I thought she was the most qualified candidate we ever had and her fiscally moderate policies enabled me to reap benefits while still covering costs of social security and welfare.

People may say that I was a different type of teen. That not everyone was as mature. Well then, why not teach them to find their own opinions instead of dismissing them?

I think adults fall into an awful habit of thinking kids don’t know enough. We talk down to them and assume they can’t possibly understand. But clearly they do.

Today’s teens are living in a world where any question they have can be answered in a matter of seconds on their phones. Teenagers are actually MUCH better at recognizing “fake news” than we are. Aside from their obvious increased technical literacy, they’re also taught how to seek out information. As students, they have access to online encyclopedias and academic research. They’re constantly being told not to trust sites like Facebook and Wikipedia, and instead fact check every piece of information they want to use. They’re writing research reports and getting graded on whether or not their facts are confirmed. They’re much better at finding the truth than we are.

Without the ability to vote, I believe they’re getting antsy. I remember talking to my cousins, just shy of 18, about how much it sucked to be unable to vote in such an important presidential election. And now here we are, with massive school shootings happening at levels that I can’t even comprehend, and they’re done with us adults. They can’t vote, but they can speak for themselves and remind politicians that they’re voting very, very soon.

We need to stop underestimating kids and instead listen to them. That’s how I treat the kids I babysit. I never want to influence their own moral and political beliefs, so I just listen to them and encourage them to think about where they stand. The other day a kid I babysat was doing a project on trans kids and I found that she knew way more than even I did. I offered no opinions and instead just let her inform me on the topic. When I was watching some younger kids, someone came to the door who was running for local office. What followed was an hour long conversation with the kids about what their platforms would be and how they can run for office within their school. While I would steer at times, like suggesting they invest in scientific research when they said they wanted to stop all hurricanes, I let them carry the conversation.

We invest so much time and money into our kids and their education. But often when they want to show us the results of that investment, we don’t listen. While what happened at Stoneman Douglas was horrific, it is inspiring to see the students use their voices and speak up for themselves when a politician is dismissive of their question. Unless you’re a teacher or school employee, the topic of school shootings will ALWAYS impact the kids in your life more than it will ever impact you. Empower them to use their voices, especially if they’re teenagers. I’m so proud of these teens who are speaking up for the students in Sandy Hook who are still too young to speak for themselves. There are no longer only parents representing their students, but students themselves being actionable.

Keep going teens. Stand up for what you believe in and know that your mind is worthy of respect and your opinions are worth being heard.

How hard are you willing to work?

I’m a pretty lazy person. A lot of you may say that I’m not giving myself enough credit but ask anyone I’ve ever lived with. They’ll tell you that there are days where I only emerge from my bed to accept my GrubHub delivery. I would live every single day like this… but I have too many goals.

Lately, people have been kicking me in the ass. I had a mini freak-out on Friday night about this. I felt like all of a sudden everything was possible and it was absolutely terrifying. Before then, I was kind of going through the motions of being a comedy student. Ok, I’m going to enroll in this program then when that’s done, I’ll go over here. I’ll continue learning until someone looks at me and says it’s time to go.

The problem is that no one is going to tell me it’s time. My last improv teacher really stressed this one. He told us that you are responsible for your own success and that this whole industry isn’t linear. Someone isn’t going to come up to you the minute you finish a program and tell you that you’re beautiful and fabulous and since you have a piece of paper saying you completed a program, you’re hired. That’s just not how it works. There are too many people who want the same goal and dream… how hard are you willing to work for it?

One of my favorite teachers once told me that Tina Fey didn’t just become Tina Fey. She wasn’t always the goddess of comedy. She worked her ass off and wrote every single day so that she would get better. I have to admit that I used to say that I loved improv because there was no homework. You just showed up, got a suggestion, and did your thing. That’s not true.

I was once in a show where I got Kurt Vonnegut as a suggestion. The only thing I know about Vonnegut was that he wrote a book called “Slaughterhouse-Five” and DePaul offered an English class about his books that I never took. There’s nothing worse than that feeling of being onstage with three other people, praying that one of them knows what the hell Vonnegut is known for. Luckily, someone else did and I took their lead.

After that show, I wrote down a list of things I should know. For the past five months, I have been going over classic movies, books and TV shows that I previously knew nothing about. I gave myself homework. It’s not that you have to know everything – that’s just impossible. But if someone in the audience shouts out To Kill a Mockingbird and I know nothing about the book because I relied on SparkNotes in high school, I’m going to look dumb. Dumb isn’t funny. Maybe there are like two bros in the audience who think that you’re funny for improvising a scene about how you have no idea what To Kill a Mockingbird is. But bros aren’t the ones hiring you, directors are. Directors don’t just look for funny people, they want you to be memorable. They want people to remember how smart you were when you took To Kill a Mockingbird as a suggestion and improvised a scene where you called all authority figures by their first name because that’s what Harper Lee taught you to do.

Additionally, no one makes it just by being a good improviser. Actually, let me retract that statement… because I don’t know if it’s true. Maybe there’s some super talented dude who just improvised… but for most of us, you have to be able to do it all. You have to act, write, sing and have some super cool talent that makes you different (I can shove six pens in my cheeks, thank you very much).

For awhile, I was coasting. I think the reason people really started pushing me is because they realized that I can write. I literally had someone come up to me the other day and offer me an audition slot for a show because he found out that I write. So many people find an excuse. Oh, I don’t do that. I’m not a writer, I’m a performer. My writing teacher summed it up perfectly the other day by pointing out that people are just scared of concepts. She mentioned that a lot of people hate writing satire in fear of the word alone. It sounds fancy, so people assume that it’s difficult. You don’t have to be a political science guru to write good political satire. You don’t have to be the best writer on the planet to call yourself a writer.

At the end of the day, figure out what you really want. Then make a list of everything you have to do to allow yourself the best chance of success. When I started this whole journey, I told myself that I can deal with failure as long as I know that I did everything in my power to make it work. That I could look back on it all without regrets. So on Friday, after allowing myself a vent sesh with my roommate to deal with the freak-out, I wrote a list. I have to eat healthy and make going to the gym a priority again. I have to write something everyday, no matter how long. I have to audition for shows that my conscious tells me I won’t get. I have to put money into my savings account so that financial stability will never be the reason I turn something down. I have to be responsible for my own success.  

After my list was complete, I put it somewhere I could see every single morning with the words “How bad do you want it?” scribbled on top.

How hard are you willing to work?

Laziness is just wasted time.

If you were ever a serious athlete, you can’t really ever escape that mindset. I always look back on my athletic training when I need advice. This week’s advice came from cheerleading.

When I was younger, I was on an extremely competitive team for awhile. We were young and a lot of times we would complain about the rigorous training. All of our friends were able to hang out after school and just have fun… but we had to work. To combat our laziness, our coach told us that if we’re serious, we need to train harder than anyone else out there. There are plenty of teams who are training harder than us, giving more… being wholly dedicated and invested in the sport. 

Lately I’ve been tired… really tired. Work is absolutely crazy, I’m babysitting constantly and I have rehearsal for 9 hours each week and at least one show a week until Christmas. With all of my responsibilities, I’ve kind of just been going from place to place without trying hard. I’ve just been showing up. The result? Lazy work. 

So yesterday, as I was trying to not fall asleep on the bus that was taking me from work to babysitting then eventually to rehearsal… I thought of the advice my coach gave me. I thought to myself – how many other people are out there trying so much harder than I am? 

I realized what my problem was on one of my improv teams. I have been in a slump lately and attributed it to confidence, long work hours, the late rehearsals… pretty much everything but myself. When I thought about it, I realized that I wasn’t really trying – I was just showing up. I got to this point in my training where I felt like I had enough natural talent to just show up and hope for the best – which wasn’t true.

Training involves reevaluating your strategy from time to time. So last night, as I was headed to rehearsal, I started to think of myself as a performer… where do I really shine? While the first answers that came to mind were, “When you’re good friends with everyone on your team!”, “During shows… on stage!” or “With your favorite coach!”… I realized that in all of those cases I’ve still had off days. So where do I really shine? In auditions.

It’s been a common theme throughout both my professional and performance life… I am best when the stakes are high. Really high. When the next few months, years or decades of my life will be decided by how I perform in this single audition or job interview. While some people choke, I shine because I get really serious. I’m someone who requires focus and these situations help me do that. I know exactly what they’re looking for and how to pull out all of the stops… I know there are no second chances. This is my one shot. 

During my walk to rehearsal, I decided to treat the next two hours like an audition… like I had only one shot to impress these people. I figured why not try this mindset? Maybe it’ll make a difference, maybe it won’t – but there’s nothing to lose. The result? My first successful rehearsal since we started. I felt really good walking away from it… like I finally proved myself worthy of being there.

Sometimes you just need to take a step back to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. Ask yourself what you’re good at… then strive to apply those same skills to every situation. And don’t get lazy. Laziness is just wasted time.