Why stars are stars

You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I love working out.  Sometimes I go to the nearby rec center with Sweet Hubby or for a hike or vigorous walk, but mostly I work out at home to one of the 40+ DVDs I have: yoga, Pilates, step aerobics, low impact aerobics, weights workouts, etc.

One of the DVDs is produced by Flirty Girl.  The workout is for hips, thighs, and booty (butt), and is led by a very fit young woman who looks as though she could be a professional pole dancer.  The workout is quite strenuous.  Ms. Main Flirty Girl is helped by two other young women, one of whom goes through the moves easily.  It's the other woman who catches my attention.  She's the one who does modified (as in easier) versions of the exercises, and even so, has a really hard time getting through the workout, sometimes squeaking adorably about how hard it is.

I love this woman, and I think FG made a smart move by including her, because most of us at-home exercisers probably also have a hard time getting through the workout.  It's so encouraging to see someone struggling as I struggle, especially when that someone is much younger and more in shape than I am.

The woman who leads the workout, though, does the exercises with ease, even as she talks though the moves.  And I have realized that that's how people become stars.  They do what the rest of us struggle with and make it look easy.  Staying in tune while singing is not easy,  and neither is delivering a song with verve and style.  Acting with deep emotion while standing on a set or in front of a green screen, surrounded by dozens of crew members, is not easy.  Shooting a bull's eye, landing a triple axel on ice, pounding someone in the face while he pounds you and outlasting his pounding - these things are not easy; for most of us, they are not even possible.  There is a reason people become stars in their fields.  They're the ones who have done the hard work and kept their focus laser sharp.

There's a reason I'm not a star.  I have never had that kind of focus on anything.  I'm not like a laser, but rather more like the sun.  I want to do everything.  I want to nourish all my relationships.  I want to play as much as I want to work.  I want to write and act and travel and take care of my house and go to theaters and take classes that interest me.  I had fantasies about stardom once, but I get it now.  I really didn't have the stuff for stardom.  And I'm finally okay with that.