Sunday, February 03, 2008

Against the Brick Wall...

I think that as a creative person, I have the tendency to bite off more than I can chew. I have so many ideas and visions of projects in their complete stages that I sometimes overlook what is actually possible. I've come up against several brick walls in the past 48 hours. In the end, I think it has been much more valuable than had I not...

Maybe it's because Mercury is in retrograde - lately everything seems to be delayed or be going haywire. It's frustrating, especially because I have so many plans.

None of the projects I've been working on for Tucson have panned out. Some things shattered, some things did not set up or cure properly, some of the inks in the papers bled, some things were dropped, broken or burnt, some of the files were lost or deleted. I was very disheartened and very upset about how things just weren't coming together. Everything just felt so futile.

That's when it came to me... I've been putting so much pressure on myself that I couldn't have possibly done a good job on anything that I've been working on. It doesn't help that I work crazy hours for my day job and haven't been able to work in a concentrated and specialized environment. I've had to learn to become all right with the fact that I just can't finish and that I can only do so much. Maybe that's the quitter's mantra, but I have to be realistic and appreciate that things of worth do take time.

I haven't failed completely yet. I've got the start of about a dozen very worthy projects and the perspective now to realize that they are just the beginning of much larger and enriched endeavors. In time, everything will eventually get done... just not for this Tucson.

Sometimes accepting the practical can be difficult, especially for someone who has such high expectations. But you know what they say: Expectation breeds disappoint. Now is the time to accept it and move forward, enjoying my time with friends and family, and continue my work undaunted by not receiving immediate success.

3 comments:

Lorelei Eurto said...

Well said!!

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes! Learning to work within our human limitations is often much more difficult than it first appears.

Sunrise TheSea said...

I think it's tough when your passion becomes work and work becomes tedious. All your work is certainly success-worthy and that may come in a variety of forms...