Why does someone always have something negative to say about me?
As a 20-year-old bloke with the body type of your average brick-layer, getting up on stage and singing a love song raises a few eyebrows and questions. It seems that some people don’t understand that no matter what I look like I can have different interests to your ‘typical’ man.
Most guys in my generation left high school with apprenticeships doing plumbing or all that other ‘manual labour’ stuff. Which, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the work they do and I understand how necessary to society they are. But that just WASN’T for me!
Ever since I can remember, I always dreamed about performing, whether that was a musical, a movie, or one of my own songs. So I decided to go to sixth form with the choice of doing a UAL in Performing Arts. That was a big decision for me because I knew I always loved to perform, but I knew that by doing that I would be putting my social life in serious jeopardy! All my friends at the time were football mad and all did either A-Levels or apprenticeships. And I knew they would instantly be judging me and asking questions like ‘isn’t that a bit girly’ or ‘ballet? Are you GAY or something?’ which I know is a very narrow minded opinion, don’t worry. But because those were my friends and I didn’t want to start anything I’d just tell them to shut up and get on with it. But it did get to me, quite a bit. Like, why can’t I do what I love without people always having something to say?
As I approach my 5th year of training my acting, singing and dancing. I still get people confused at me when they see me. Cause I’m this 6 foot, broad shouldered, northern talking man who can double pirouette with the best of them. But I don’t see why that should be something worth discussing, I mean, I get it a little because when you think of someone who does dance and is a musical theatre performer you think of a bunch of ‘skinny’ people who do nothing else but drink coffee and hang out at ‘Pret A Manger.’ But sadly I’m not like that. I am someone who goes to the pub to watch the football (Liverpool fan), who loves to sleep until 1pm on weekends but I am also someone who PERFORMS with all his heart and who can do it just as good as the people you think do what I do.
What I have learned from all of this, is that sometimes words do hurt, and sometimes you even begin to question of what you love is for you. But let me tell you something
DO WHAT YOU LOVE, I PROMISE YOU WILL FIND PEACE.
Don’t ever give up, because if you let all of the hate and negativity get to you, you’re letting them win, you’re letting society stick to its normal stereotypical self. We can’t keep allowing the people who think they know better tell us what to do and to tell us what we should be doing. My absolutely lovely but also very Geordie and sometime what some people would call ‘up in the clouds’ dance teacher said to our class
“you are the driver of your own destiny, beep beep”
Which I must say, sounds absolutely ridiculous, I mean, why did she need to put the beeps in there? But what I took from that message (after the initial laughing, obviously) is that we control what we do and we know what we love. what I am trying to say is, there will always be people judging, there will always be people who think you don’t belong where you are. But if keep working hard and you keep doing what you love, one day, the voices will soon quiet down, and you are going to eventually learn to sub-consciously ignore it all, because you’re doing what you love, and that’s all that matters.
My name is Sam Keeling, I am 20 years old and I am an performing artist, and that’s all that matters.
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