Am I My Resume.

When it first came out on Broadway, my girlfriend (my eventual wife) and I saved our money and got tickets to see "A Chorus Line." Not long ago in The New York Times, I ran across this obituary of a star from the original cast of the show and it sent me down more than a rabbit hole--instead, a veritable rabbit subway system.

My wife and I saw the show probably almost fifty years ago, but there's a line from the song above, that I seldom go a day without thinking of, or singing to myself: 

"Who am I anyway? Am I my resume?"

I'm 65 years old and that line sticks with me for a very simple reason.

We are on the hunt. We are always hunting. We are always in an audition.

We are always trying out.

Showing our "stuff."

Hoping he likes us.

Even more, hoping we get "it." Whatever it is.

Yes. Even at 65.

This morning, I have a half-hour phone call with about 29 people from a potential client. GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company was invited into a pitch with 30 other agencies--a dozen of them big, notable and fearsome.

I really have no right to be in such a conflagration. But I was asked to join--and it's not smart to check-out before you check- in.

So, I submitted a response to their questions. Damn, it was a pain in the ass. Most clients come to me because they know me, they've heard of me, or they've seen my ads.

In large measure, I seldom have to audition.

But now.

Am I my resume?

In about two hours--they're on Pacific Time--they'll ask me a bunch of questions about my responses.

Like almost everything else, this is an audition. A try-out. A foray into vulnerability.

When I was in high school, I had a friend from Canada. He was an athlete and became a Division 1 hockey player. In the cold-weather he wore good old-fashioned long-johns. 

One day he said something about them being a pain in the ass--because he had to button-up his pooh-flaps.

Pooh-flaps? I asked. I was unfamiliar with his slang.

Yeah, he explained, the opening covering his ass so he could defecate.

Living life is exposing your ass. Putting your ass out there. Leaving it swinging in the breeze.

Life in some measure is hoping you get chosen. When we were four, it was kickball. When we were teenagers, it was hanging out with the cool kids. A little later, it was hoping we could get a date to a dance. Later still, it was getting into college.

Life is a series of auditions.

It really doesn't stop.

It's an audition.

Eight times or more out of ten, it's a rejection.

That's ok.

There will be another audition tomorrow.

Be ready.