Shining star, or tending bar...
Here are a few words from Bette Davis:
In high school I helped to pay my tuition by waiting on tables, even though it's always been hard for me to take orders from anyone. there was always something subordinate about me, so if anyone gave me a direct command like, 'Get me scrambled eggs,' a little voice inside of me said, 'Give them fried.'
That was me, when, after leaving Manhattan Transfer following a car accident, I had to waitress to pay the bills. Reasonably adequate serving skills, caustically rebellious attitude. And oh, how often I vowed to show them.
When, as a young girl, Davis auditioned for Eve La Gallienne's acting school, she was told, by La G, that her approach to "the the-a-ter" was not serious enough.
Years later... I had my moment, the one I had been waiting for. Who hasn't waited for that moment when you could show someone who didn't think you were worth a row of pins that they were wrong? I walked up to her at a Broadway opening and I announced triumphantly, 'I guess I was serious enough, after all.' She looked blankly at me and said, 'What a pleasure to meet you, Miss Davis! I so admire your work.' It was clear she hadn't the least notion what I was talking about. The hurt I had been carrying around with me for years, she'd completely forgotten. You can't show people; it's a waste of your time.
Had I read those last two sentences earlier in my life, I might not have believed Miss Davis. But experience has taught me, repeatedly, the wisdom of what she said. The people to whom you want to prove your point and your worth, those people from that big, pivotal scene in the movie of your life, in which you were the star, have been starring in the movies of their lives, in which you were often merely a bit player, if you had lines at all. Sometimes they don't even remember your walk-on.
Decades ago, when I was pining after a man who'd failed to appreciate me, and so wanting to "show him" that I was an emotional wreck, a wiser man hugged me and said, "Wasted energy. It's wasted energy." I think that is what Miss Davis is saying.
I guess the job in living is to be responsible, as the star, for the quality of your work in your movie, even though, through someone else's lens, you may be just an extra in theirs.
The Davis quotes are from The Girl Who Walked Home Alone by Charlotte Chandler. Go get it from your local public library.