1. Persistence is the firmness or stubborn continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition. Everyday I strive, in one way or another, to be persistent in what I do. Whether it be in something as simple as showing up to classes on time, or to bigger things, such as keeping my passion for technical theater alive day after day, week after week, and semester after semester, I always strive to be persistent. This mentality has come from a place of not being where I wanted to be at one point due to a lack of persistence and effort. As a high school student, I never really did anything above the bare minimum in classes that didn’t interest me, rather I’d focus on the classes that I did like, or on the extracurricular activities that piqued my interest, and I’d excel there. Now, after some growth as a person, I realize that one cannot survive by picking and choosing what they want to do and what to ignore based on whatever reason there was. I know now that being a holistic person means avoiding being a one-trick pony, being a limited person who can’t swim when out of their depth, and that being a well-adjusted human takes work, integrity and courage, and most of all, takes persistence. I think that placing persistence as a core value means that I’m willing to slog through whatever bullshit life may throw at me, it means that I have goals and that I’m honest in my efforts and that I set a standard for myself, and that I always try at the very least to make my focus a reality.
  2. This value could relate to my goals for the future as it seems like my field requires a lot of persistence. Every job in the world has competition, of that there is no doubt in my mind, but I also think that the requirement of persistence is especially important in my field. Technical theater can be dangerous, complicated and grueling work, but people like me and my three mentors before me do it anyway because it makes our souls feel alive, it gives us a sense of purpose, and we do it because it’s good work worth doing alongside good people. I think that the value of persistence relates to my goals of becoming a professional and union stagehand in the way that every stagehand I have ever met or come across in my relatively small work experience has been persistent to get where they are, to know what they know; they persisted to have that quality of getting shit done. That sort of tenacity has inspired me to liken myself to them, to have that unyielding persistence while also maintaining the sense of fun and humor that is also supremely prevalent in our industry behind closed doors.
  3. Improving my writing and communication skills will help me achieve these goals by both setting me apart from prospective future stagehands as someone who can listen and communicate with other workers, and by distinguishing me as someone who can keep up in the hectic world of technical theater. In our field, communication is a king, as there are always a million things happening at once, it’s a prime example of organized chaos, and the one thing that keeps everything from falling apart is communication. Communication keeps workers safe, it ensures the production goes off as smoothly as it can, and it opens the doors for further employment opportunities in which you can make a lot of bank. Improving my communication skills allows me an advantage I can use for my betterment, it’s an advantage that keeps our profession and passion alive, and it’s an advantage that can help in personal matters. Learning better communication skills will not only help me become a better equipped prospective stagehand, it also makes me a better person overall. Win-win-win.