So I tried out for ABC’s The Bachelor TV show and apparently made it to the final cut but ultimately lost out to the guy you will see next season. What’s funny is this “alchemist theme” that I’ve experienced before is yet again confirmed in this situation and that is:
that the end destination of the intended journey is not nearly as important as the act of the pilgrimage itself
I’ve found that when you’re in a rut, socially, mentally, emotionally, physically – whatever – the best course of action is to pick a landmark and move towards it. Even if you don’t really know where you are going and never actually wind up reaching that mark, the mere act of working towards a goal catalyzes movement, change, and progress. For me, the process of filming the Bachelor audition video (which against my better judgement is viewable below) released me from two separate ruts- it freed me from an aversive living situation and put me back in touch with an old friend that I’m now dating. Oddly enough, even if the ABC people were to call me up as a replacement for the show, at this point I would have to decline as I’m no longer eligible.
Rut #1 came as a complete shock when I found some creepy footage of the contents of my room being silently filmed by my ex-roommate. Borrowing his camera and finding that footage led to my decision to move and now I’m in a house in Tempe 3min from the office and in a much better situation.
Rut #2 (and the reason for trying out for the Bachelor in the first place) was purely one of being frustrated with my social life. I never did get over this girl I dated a year ago and found myself constantly unable to stop comparing every girl I tried to date afterwards to her. This was an unhealthy yet involuntary behavior on my part; a “record-skipping” mental hang-up on a situation that unfortunately left a gaping hole emotionally and never saw any closure.
Well, two months ago I get an email from a lady saying she found me through LinkedIn and wanted me to try out for the Bachelor on ABC. I blew it off as a practical joke from my friend Matt. There were a few more emails and eventually she called and said “you only have three days left and we really want you to try out, I don’t know why you’re ignoring us.” After speaking with her on the phone I determined it was legit. That weekend I decided at the very least the video filming would be a fun exercise in learning iMovie on the Mac – I filmed a few minutes of video, spliced it together and sent it in. A month later I find out that I actually made it to the final cut but didn’t end up getting the role. I’m no Firestone or Prince so I wasn’t expecting much going into it and was totally flattered to get to the finals. What’s interesting is through the process of filming the testimonials I got back in touch with two friends I hadn’t seen in awhile. One of them ended up putting me up at her place while I sorted out the living situation and the other one basically broke through these blinders I have had on that denied the possibility of ever thinking about her on that level. Having known here for seven years but seeing her in a new way, she is the first girl that makes me forget about Tracy and realize there are other stars in the sky.
Anyways, this is more personal post than I would typically want to share on the blog but hey, it’s Thanksgiving and I think today you get a free license to be sappy about what you are thankful for. I’m grateful for the way things have turned around in the past few months both in the personal and business spheres. I haven’t written a lot lately because things have been moving at a breakneck pace with launching JumpBox but there’s a ton of interesting stuff going on to share and hopefully the holiday weekend will afford a little writing time to do a long-overdue kernel dump for the past few months on things I’ve learned or run across. Happy Turkey Day everybody (and Cold Turkey Day tomorrow ;-). And now here’s Sean being stupid and giving away free blackmail material to his friends with the silly audition video that fortunately didn’t pan out:
It’s not every day you get the privilege to announce the birth a new technology that alters the rules of an industry. I present to you 
