It’s funny how we how one step forward can lead to so many others. I’ve learned this time and again and yet I manage to forget it the moment I stop moving. I think that’s the key to everything in life, to just keep moving regardless of what’s happening, how bad things are or when you don’t know where all of this is going. This job was the first step and it’s slowly leading to others even if there isn’t anything conclusive or permanent yet. I should’ve had plans post-graduation but I didn’t and sunk right back into that hole I was in 6 years ago. I had an amazing final year at school but I failed to remember that life can’t stop with that. Tomorrow is the last day at this job but I don’t want a repeat of the last five months. A few things have come up for me to keep moving such as editing a paper, an invitation to a cookout with my coworkers, and coming into possession of a classical guitar. Nothing major really but I know that I need to embrace whatever I can get and do anything I possibly can to stay busy. I’m currently working on drawing again and learning new things so let’s hope I follow through.
Tag Archives: change
Ever get told how horrible a person you are? How stupid? How worthless? You can try to build yourself up all you want but when your own flesh and blood tell you these things blatantly and through every action and grimace they make, it’s hard to stand strong in the face of that. It doesn’t cut the same way it used to but that may be just because I’ve managed to keep myself at bay from ruminating over any type of negative feelings for quite some time. Yet, even without the emotional turmoil I had allowed myself to wallow in for most of my life, I still can’t seem to move forward even in the absence of those things. I wondered for some time whether I had truly left those negative feelings behind and moved on from it but the fact that I’m at a standstill again shows that all of those things still affect me whether I have an immediate reaction or not.
There are many resilient people out there who push forward and thrive in the face of adversity or simply are courageous enough to keep moving in spite of it. You shoot them down, they’re revved up to prove you wrong. I’m not like that at all. I don’t work well in the face of any type of judgment, good or bad. It’s difficult for me to deal with conclusive statements because I feel pressured either way. Pressured to the point that where I literally can’t do anything.
“Great work” Sh*t, what if I don’t measure up next time? Avoid, Delay, Neglect.
“You’re an idiot, what’s wrong with you?” I don’t know, let me curl up in a corner and settle into a catatonic state and get back to you on that.
Explaining what I need to deaf ears won’t move me. I know that. I should’ve learned that after all these years and yet I seem to think it will be possible one day. But I can’t keep moving if I allow the pace of my life to be dependent on the behavior of others. I know I need to suck it up and rise above the harsh opinions of those closest to me. It won’t change my life and doing nothing only serves to encourage them.
Ironically, they think by doing nothing, it means I don’t care but the problem is that I care too much.
Returning to Art
Ever since I was small, I have always had an affinity for drawing. My sister and I sat down to our sketch pad or pieces of paper to draw almost everyday. One summer, we spent each day sitting down in front of the television to “Drawing with Mark Kistler” almost every time it aired. Even after the show was over, I would continue working on whatever I had done for that time. It was amazing and I really loved those days where you could just give yourself up to several hours of drawing. My sister was far more advanced in her drawing skills than I was, though I suppose that is to be expected since she is four years older. Her artwork drew comparisons to mine, and I remember my father once telling me that I didn’t draw as well as her. Being the overly sensitive and easily discouraged type that I was, I ended up giving up drawing. It’s not like I never drew again, but on the rare occasion that I did, it was where it would never be seen. After some time, I found that I could no longer draw from my imagination and it became another one of my many failures and cause for envy. No matter how much I tried, I just good not get myself to even sit down to draw for longer than five minutes.
During my final semester, I decided to sign up for an drawing class, as my final attempt to get back into it. The first half of the semester was a struggle. Almost all of my sketches were half drawn and it took me forever to complete each assignment. When it came time to handing in our sketch books during midterms, I was reluctant to give it in partially because I was embarrassed about the drawing style I was into. The professor looked through everyone’s sketchpads during the class and when she got to mine, her mouth dropped in surprise and she exclaimed aloud to me about how surprising and unexpected it was. It definitely had nothing to do with the quality of the drawings whatsoever since all of it was barely started. She left me a comment on a piece of paper about it and somehow that became a major turning point for me.
I guess I felt validated and something kind just cleared away in my head. I began drawing more and more, eventually switching over to ink which I NEVER imagined being able to do. I hate permanence beyond anything especially because you can’t go back and fix your mistakes. It was liberating. I could finally draw from my head and I cannot even begin to describe what an amazing feeling that was. The limit for our midterm sketchbook was 20 which I barely made. The second half of the semester ended with filling up the remaining 50 pages of my sketchbook, both front and back. I even managed to complete my final project for critique on time, though literally a second before I began my presentation but it was a major accomplishment for me.
With the semester over, I’m having trouble holding on to what I gained during the past couple of months but I’m starting it up again. I’ll be posting what I do as I go along. I still have absolutely no confidence whatsoever in my drawings but I know I won’t grow without making mistakes. I really want to give myself up to drawing as much as I can this summer.
I added an art page to my blog so hopefully I’ll be filling that space up with a lot of work.
Moving Through Fear
In all that I become, I hope to reach a point where I can move through this fear.
Much of what deters us from accomplishing anything or finishing even the simplest of tasks is fear. One may wish to be without it, but it’s not possible to live that way and if you are, you’re losing out on a life worth living.
Even at this very moment, as I attempt to write my second post, I am weighed down by fear. Six failed drafts, a month delay and a a hundred pauses and breaks later, I’ve come to this point. I distract myself with doing anything but this. Writing a simple post is a small sample of how fear has and in many ways, continues to hold me back. I do not know if this will be another failed attempt, something to clutter my laptop.
These last two years have been all about learning how to move through fear. Far too often, I focus on the outcome, magnifying its difficulty and the importance of it being successful. A single failure would mean the end. A confirmation of my worst fears, that I am not enough. The scope of the failure is irrelevant. This feeling transcends into everything which is one of the reasons why it took so long for me to get through school.
Fortunately, though with the speed of a snail, I have come to see that beating myself up about such things and focusing on the end result only wastes energy and prevents me from moving forward. In the last few months, my efforts have borne fruit but the process is never ending and I think that is one of the most difficult things to stomach and embrace. We would rather put all our effort in one go and enjoy the results permanently but that’s not how life works. Like anything else, acceptance and contentment with the way things are will free us to deal with all the fear and unpredictability that our lives are colored with.
No one can escape fear but rather than fighting to lose that feeling or doing everything I can to avoid it, I want to be able to walk with it.
I want to keep moving in spite of it.
And I want to keep doing it even if every fiber of my being screams that I can’t.
This is what it means to move through fear and from what I’ve experienced in the last couple of years, it is the only thing that works. Why is that the case? Because once I begin “doing”, I slowly start to see it wasn’t that big of a deal. Unfortunately, human memory is a funny thing and somehow one good experience is easily trumped by fear and memories of failure but it’s a process. If you forget again, then repeat the process as many times as it takes to commit it to memory until moving through fear becomes second nature.
The worst thing you can do is absolutely nothing.
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” -Dale Carnegie
First Post…since the beginning should always be commemorated.
As a senior in college, I’m coming close to a new turning point in my life. Actually, I’ve been a senior in college for about three years now so the importance is not in the status. It’s the fact that it is soon about to end but even without that, the past two years have just been a series of changes that has been spiraling in the last couple of months.
I’m not a a creature of habit and everyday always seems to be different. There are good and bad aspects to this fact. Stability has never been my forte and in some ways I don’t want that. It’s not good to be so complacent or settle ourselves into a normal routine without ever experiencing discomfort.
It is only in discomfort that we grow and for myself, writing continues to be one of them.
Grammar, spelling, diction, and organization of thoughts are something I still struggle with. In point of fact, my struggle with writing is probably a reflection of my struggles in life. I’ve never been able to take the route everyone else has or succeed in the same way as others.
My primary problem is perspective and people. Being in the public eye or doing anything that can have an audience of just a single person has a huge impact on how I do things or feel about myself. If it were up to me, I ‘d like to be able to walk outside with an invisible shield, go through my daily activities and interests without a single person ever seeing me or the results of anything that I do. Clearly that’s not exactly a normal or even possible wish. I can’t spend my life hiding and nor should I do so even if it were possible. There’s a lot to be gained and learned when doing things out in the open.
With the summer approaching, I will be having a lot of time on my hands and a new life to begin. It’s time that I get over my fears one by one and plunge headfirst into everything I do. I know it’s a process so I won’t expect too much of myself but I figure this is a start. I’m not sure what I’ll be writing about, how long each post will be or whether it’ll form any single format.
I just know that whatever it is, I want it to be an unadulterated and unedited reflection of me.
cradlemehappy 