Day 40: Choice II

I am still struggling to make the final decision on what short pay to submit to the Samuel French competition. The decision I had thought I made (Shuffle) didn't stick when I got a recommendation from a director I've worked with to submit Spirit Dust instead. I was going to attempt to make some sort of pregnancy analogy for how difficult this decision is, but that was leading me down the road of hypothetical scenarios like if you had to choose only one of two twins to keep. Such a comparison would be a form of hubris that (fortunately) I don't possess.

But it does lead me to reflect on this process of choice. I believe there is a popular ideal in our culture of "listen to your gut" (an idea given special credence by Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking a few years ago). But when your gut runs up against input you're being given by others, and when that input itself is conflicting, how do you make a choice? How do you decide which voice in your head to listen to? How do you discern which voice is the "true" voice (if there is such a thing), which are the voices of fear and doubt trying to sabotage you, which are those of people who really don't know any better than you do?

If I gave you the impression that I would be postulating an answer to that question, I do apologize. Honestly, I don't know how one discerns between these voices. I proposed this question to my therapist this week, and she didn't have an answer either. Apparently, there is no formula to figuring out when you should follow your gut, and when you should carefully examine of all the facts and solicit all of the expert opinions you can find.

Sometimes, there is no right answer. But any step you take is a step down a path. A decision is better than no decision. I want to learn to embrace the advice I heard from Gretchen Rubin (of the Happiness Project fame) last night at her joint talk with Julie Powell (of Julie & Juliafame): to "enjoy the fun of failure". "This is risk; this is challenge. If you aren't failing, you aren't trying hard enough."
 
So I'm going to try. I'm going to submit one of my plays - either Spirit Dust or All in the Shuffle -- to the Samuel French competition. Which one, you ask? The one playwriting teacher number two suggested? Or the one my director suggested? The one my gut tells me is the stronger stand-alone piece? Or the one that has been tested in front of an audience and I know plays well? I'll let you know as soon as I do. Feel free to let me know your opinion.