The first step is always the most important one. Regardless of what it is you want to do, without the first step, you can’t really do anything else. Oddly enough, it’s also often the step that people most want to not take, or at least it’s the one that people don’t want to admit that they want to take. It’s in our nature to be proud, since the acquisition of ability creates in us a need to gloat about this ability, whatever it is. The reason that I think we don’t want to admit to wanting to take the first step is because the first step is surrendering in some way. The thing is, in order to do anything, the first thing you need to do is surrender to circumstances and admit that you may fail. Without understanding the risk of failing, you can’t really celebrate your successes at the end, much less even putting effort into the work you plan on doing.
This is especially true for artists; the prouder we are about our artistic talents, the less we seem to think we’ll fail, and that results in a dangerous amount of over confidence. But if, like me, one is willing to say “hey, I may fail at this” and still give it a shot, it might come out a pleasant surprise, but it also means less humiliation when you in fact don’t succeed. I’ve seen people who start out with some kind of plan, so sure that it will be where life will take them, and then they end up falling apart because something went wrong along the way. It’s always important to realize that no matter how much experience we have, we’re only human, and despite our ability to achieve some kind of perfection, it may not always happen the next time we try.
Catch ya on the flipside.
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