If you’re curious about one topic, you can stay curious, even if your interests change over time.
If you’re kind to one person, you can stay kind when talking to other people.
If you showed leadership in your last job, you can show leadership in your new job.
You can be consistent in how you do things, without having to be consistent in what you do.
Admiring (flawed) early work is easy when we already know the late work is going to be great.
Everyone forgives Picasso or Da Vinci for a lousy early sketch. In fact, people pay good money to hang one in their living room.
Maybe the early work, showing that even the greats are mere mortals on a journey towards excellence, is the most valuable?
And yet, it’s much harder to be gentle on a beginning artist for shipping mediocre creative work – not in the least for the beginning artist themselves – when their path to excellence hasn’t unfolded yet.
After all, something that one day will be “my early work” is still “my current best work” today.
The road to excellence is invisible from the trenches.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Which makes me wonder…
When I know that through persistence and daily practice, one day, I’ll look back on today’s creation, smiling, thinking: “Oh how far I’ve come… How much I’ve learned… And some of this was actually pretty good…”
Can I admire my creative work less for what it looks, feels, or sounds like, and more for who I’m becoming through making it?
Can I do the same for the creative projects of others?
With that mindset… How much easier and forgiving would the daily creative journey be?
feigned feelings lead to forced forging
of a bond, brittle, easily brokenbut when i learn to listen
to the winds whirling within
stop seeing them as a sinwhen i hold them back no more
forceful feelings finally roar
revealing a hidden song
sung secretly for so longmy true self set free
softly I breathe
my melody into your mind
feelings mingle, sometimes grind
leaving the shyness far behindand hearing our songs entwined
I am no longer blind
to the insight
that we’ve been singing the same song
of a wordless world where we all belongat last I feel strong
Lukas Van Vyve
for we were always one
blessed by a bond
that can’t be undone
We regret the past, worry about the future, and forget about the now.
What if I:
To let go of the past:
To create a future with fewer worries:
To be in the moment:
The constant: write Morning Pages.
When you start a new project, excitement eclipses sacrifices.
But when things get serious, you must know what you’re in for.
Your dreams may be worth every sacrifice. But you better know why, before life has passed you by.
You kind of want to run a marathon.
You kind of want to eat better.
You kind of want to move more.
You kind of want to feel better.
And everything kind of stays the same.
Only when “kind of” becomes “absolutely” and “want to” becomes “choose to” change happens.
I absolutely choose to write.
I absolutely choose to run a marathon.
I absolutely choose to eat better.
I absolutely choose to move more.
I absolutely choose to do whatever it takes to feel better.
Because there is no other way.
Most things are hard and a challenge, until suddenly they aren’t anymore.
And then we’ll find a new challenge.
And maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.
