Rob Gilroy: Making A Stand #37
And so a new year is upon us once again – Huzzah!
Like most people, I celebrated the first day of 2014 by struggling to stomach a bacon and egg bagel while my intestines performed the Karma Sutra of entanglements, my mind awash with half-remembered moments of gin-heavy cocktails, rich chorizo and Jools Holland’s C-list mates. It was not pretty.
I’ve never fully understood why the desire to better oneself at the start of the New Year directly follows a descent into the doldrums of the sole and a martini bottle?
I suppose it’s like the saying goes – ‘the night is darkest before the dawn’ or even ‘you’re more likely to book that gym membership after you wake up in a pissed-filled bath, clinging onto a plate of bruschetta’. Either way it works.
And so it is that despite my brief foray into ungodly rituals, I am now ready to better myself.
When I say ‘better myself’ I’m not talking about moving to Romania and building remand centres for div kids, I’m referring to not having sugar in my tea and not filing my unopened bank statements in the cat’s litter tray.
OK, so I may never be Bono but that’s not such a bad thing, surely? I bet even he wakes up on New Year’s Day and thinks – ‘ah, sod it; I’ll have a Pop Tart and go back to bed’.
The one area I primarily want to focus on during this time of resolutions, lies and untouched bottles of Yakult is; my working life. If you can call it a working life, that is.
I’ve never been the world’s most motivated person and I’ve been OK with that. If I was striving for that title I would arguably have to put in much more work. I do my bit, sometimes I go above and beyond to do my bit, but more often than not; I’m lazy.
I somehow manage to be lazy without ever really enjoying the obvious benefits that come with doing nothing – the obligatory futon, the comfort eating, the channel 4 documentary about my inability to interact with society – I get none of that.
I very rarely get enough time to sit and day dream. I don’t do enough work and yet I don’t do enough nothing either. I’m not sure how I manage this.
I think it’s because I spend so much time and energy geeing myself up to be productive that by the time I’m suitably motivated the laptop is out of charge. I spent far too long deliberating over ever creative decision I want to make, and that’s after I’ve spend a good half of the day rearranging my office, which would be fine were it not just a desk in my spare room.
I seem to have developed an inbuilt fear of starting work. Whether that be developing my stand up, writing that script I’ve been meaning to write or just sending that funny tweet about the bloke in the hat that I saw on the bus. God that was a funny hat.
The only creative thing I do these days is fabricating a list of excuses as to why I don’t get more work done. I can reason with myself that I need time to think ideas through, I need to be in the right mood, I can’t start writing too soon or else I’ll over think things, etc, etc. I have more conflicting theories and approaches than a forum full of Sherlock fans.
So, why am I whining to you about this? (Sorry.)
Well, it’s because I want to sort it out, I want to get better and be more productive and get my life back on track. I won’t lie; I make these promises every year and yet never quite go through with them, but 2014 is different. It’s new.
And I am going to do my utmost to stay motivated. I want to be writing and performing more than ever before. January is only the beginning…
That said, I’m still trying to shift this hangover, so the resolution won’t start properly until mid-Jan. Maybe Feb. I think I just need a couple of weeks to relax after Christmas and then – BANG! I’ll get on it. And by March I’ll be up and running. Not literally though. I’m not into that.
Rob can be seen next at The Stand Comedy Club in Newcastle on Thursday 9, Friday 10 and Saturday 11 January.
