What I've Learned In My 20's

A lot. But first...

Welcome back to Daily Chuables, this is my blog site where I honestly just say whatever it is for the inter webs to view and judge me on years later down the line. The last time I made content on here was about two years ago, so yeah. So let's start with a quick update first.

I've moved since the last time I was on here. Into not only a new apartment building but also a new, bigger unit as well. I am blessed to have a room that I can work quietly in because you all know how easily distracted I get. I've enrolled in a 2-year acting program and am now, as of 08/12/25, almost finished, I'm inspired to create more than ever before not just from an acting standpoint but also through music, through videos, and through writing like this here content. A class I'm currently in has really encouraged me to begin making more content for myself rather than wait for opportunities to land in my lap. This blog post is sort of a first step in the direction for me writing wise. Oh! I also co-wrote and acted in a short film with some friends! I don't know when that's coming out yet but I might leave it on here as sort of a memory log so that I'll always have it in some way. Anyways you didn't come here for my life update so let's move forward.

Let's Get Down to Business.

A lot has happened in the last two years since I've been on here like I mentioned but for sure even more has happened overall in my 20's. I live a pretty mundane life in general and so the lessons I've learned aren't like "do NOT try MDMA with a shot of Four Loko and a sniff of incense.". They're more practical like "Don't forget to button up your shirts and turn them inside out before you put them in the washer" type of lessons. The purpose of this list is to compile a list of the most important things I've learned these last ten years for myself and by leaving it on here maybe someone else will also resonate with any of these and be able to apply it to themselves. Or even better yet, leave your own advice in the comments below and we call group share everything we've learned. As usual I'm winging all of my writing so I will probably ramble and end up having to split this shit into multiple segments. (future Alex here: he rambled too much and so there's only one lesson on here) But let's start with the first one.

Lesson 01 - What's the worst that could happen?

Anyone that knows me will know that I have a lot of self doubt and self esteem issues. This translates into a HUGE fear of failure which stems from a huge slop of childhood trauma. I could drone on for pages about it (I actually did, I had to delete it all and start this section over because it was getting ridiculous) but something that someone asked me one time about it was "What's the worst thing that could happen?". And I'm going to be completely honest that kind of fucked me up because when I said out loud what I thought could happen it sounded SO DUMB. I then realized that a lot of the outcomes that I fear are absolutely inconsequential at the end of the day and there is zero need to be afraid of it.

That's not to say these outcomes couldn't happen but if it did so what? We just pivot and take the experience of that failure and fucking more forward. This is also not to say that I fucking magically grew a pair and now I'm fucking fearless of anything. I am largely the same person I was before the moment mentioned above but now I will ask myself that question, genuinely, and I will usually come to a similar conclusion and decide that I should go up there and do it. This happens a lot to me at Stella Adler because I get incredibly nervous that my shit is gonna suck but if it did so what? Don't make the same mistakes as last time, learn from it, and do better the next time. Pivot pivot pivot my friends.

So what should you do?

Besides asking yourself what the worst thing could happen and playing out that scenario there are other things you can do/have in order to reduce that sense of fear. For me it has been a strong support system, a mantra, and repetition.

Strong Support System

A strong support system like your friends or family can be a really powerful thing to have in your life for things like this. Your own brain more often than not is your worst enemy, and so being able to voice what your brain is telling you to other people can not only make you realize that you sound dumb (like it did for me) but it can also allow other people to tell you if you're being rational or not. I am incredibly blessed to have met some amazing people that always are trying to pull the best out of me and I think my growth as a person and as an actor would have been much more behind if not for them. Make sure you tell them what they have done for you and always be sure to be their voice of reason when they need it as well, don't be a dick.

The Mantra

I am an incredibly forgetful person and I could have taken all of this advice to heart but as soon as I step out of the room I will forget everything that was said not two minutes ago. I don't mean anything by it my brain just doesn't hold information well if it isn't constantly repeated in my life. This is sort of where mantra's help. I say sort of because with ADHD nothing is off the table when it comes to forgetting it, even your own god damn mantra. So while this mantra thing can work for you, it's ultimately moot if you can't remember to use it which happens to me a lot. The mantra can be literally anything you want it to be as long as it's something that affects you and inspires you to move out of your own way.

For me, and you're welcome to steal it after all I don't own the English language, my mantra is "Stop being timid.". The wording for me is incredibly important because I started with DON'T and not stop and it felt more preventative rather than a call to action. STOP implies that I'm already doing it, which I almost certainly always am, and just encourages me to stop that shit. This works for me to a certain degree but I still require other layers of prevention and cure in order to further curb the feeling. And that leads to...

Repetition

This is, in my humble humble opinion, the best one to help with our fear of failure. It's so fucking simple but also so fucking hard. I fully believe that the key to eradicating our fear of failure is... to fail...a lot. Our body, through science mumbo jumbo, has a really effective way of building tolerances to stimuli's. Bro, fucking fear is no different! The fear in our mind is a stimulus like any other stimulus at the end of the day and the best way to become numb to that shit is to do it, over and over and over again. At some point it becomes less of a vision in your head and turns into something thats doesn't surprise you anymore and you learn to roll with it. The hardest part about this method is that it's very dependent on the person going through it. If you're not someone who can tough that shit out and keep trying, if you're someone who maybe after the fifth failed attempt calls it quits than this particular method might not be for you. Maybe do the other two and ride that shit out for as long as you can. But if you've got the hide of a fuckin' rhino and your ass can take a beating no problem, first of all I don't know why you'd even fear failure in the first place, but this would definitely work for you.

All This To Say...

Again, these are things that are working for me at the moment. They might stop working for me somewhere down the line but as of right now they help curb my fears. I am sure there are also 100 other methods that help these were just the three I used the most and were the first to come into my head at the moment of writing. Read self help books or watch YouTube videos on it. There are people WAY better at this stuff than I am. I'm just spitballing here and trying to put my feelings about things on this blog site. If these things help me, I figure maybe they'll be able to help someone else. If not you're free to move on with your life and ignore this. But if this could help anyone, I'd be remiss to put it out there for them.

So this clearly took way too long to talk about and so I think I'm going to split everything that I have learned and AM learning into just separate posts so this doesn't take a century to read. ALSO I feel the need to put a disclaimer, I am not offering any type of professional help this is literally all mumbo jumbo bullshit from some guy on the internet. He has ZERO credits and ZERO PhD's so take everything he says with a spoonful of salt and honestly why should you believe everything you read on the internet anyways.

Hopefully the next blog post doesn't take two years to come out. Anyways at the bottom here I'd like to thank my friends for putting up with me, I recently hung out with Aryaan and Ari (both lovely people I rate them highly) and they were kind of the catalyst for this post. They are always so supportive of me and I aspire to be as supportive as them to everyone in my life. If you have someone like that in your life please text them to let them know. Okay this is running long, if you're still here why? I'm literally rambling and wasting your time. But I love you and you know that, you silly. Till next time!

Still Unhinged,

Alex