Does it ever seem to you like the people who started out in their chosen field ten or twenty years ago had it easier? Similar is the nostaglia we feel when our parents and grandparents tell us of the good ole days when they ran barefoot through the fields, wandered in forests without getting lost, and swam in swimming holes that now contain flesh-eating parasites of every kind.
For example, you’re a budding musician. You’re thrilled that now, more than ever, people can access your music and create a following. Youtube loves you (or it doesn’t.) The Voice could find you or you could go on America’s Got Talent. Yet the awesome factor diminishes when you acknowledge that everyone else has same advantage you have. And you’re left feeling like you’re late to the costume party and that your “Static Cling” costume is way lamer than the “Sexy S’more” duo. If only you’d started out young like Taylor Swift, you too could be a multi-million dollar brand by being your adorable self.
As things change almost daily in the artistic marketplace, a yearning for something we can’t have crops up in us–the wish to have started earlier. It rarely matters when we started- we always could’ve started sooner. We wish we’d begun five or ten years ago before everyone and their sister thought they deserved stardom (but dang, Lennon and Maisy are cute, aren’t they?) We wish we’d started painting as a child and really pursuing our interest in art when we had access to teachers who could stand beside us while we navigated the uncertain waters. We wish we’d started writing at fourteen at a serious enough level to be published at sixteen like some who will not be named.
I mean, seriously- what took me so long to get where I am today? Why, when I’m finally coming into my own in my art, is this the worst time ever in the history of ever?
What’s worse is when we pose these questions to the established artists or industry leaders, they laugh (albeit nervously) and say something along the lines of “these problems didn’t exist when I first started out.”
Not helping, but thanks.
We didn’t buy into the lie– that when you do what you love and are truly good at it, success will come easily and swiftly–but we hoped it would be true for us. Calling it a lie might be a bit harsh, because the stories we hear are doctored to make success sound simplified. Their story is just not true to our circumstance. Lightning hasn’t struck. We haven’t become overnight insta-successes. Our families weren’t as supportive as we thought they’d be. The media hasn’t caught wind of our heretical attitude that is sure to lead the next generation to world peace.
I’ve been challenged recently in my asking of “why?” that maybe I’m not in the wrong place at the wrong time–an afterthought of “The Great Era of Success” which I missed by a few years. It’s my definition of success that needs to change. What would my life look like if my dreams of fortune and fame were stripped and redressed in a desire for humility and generosity? Of what value would I consider my life if, at the end, one hundred people knew my name and my heart and remembered me for the justice I brought to their world of crisis?
Your song of victory may not be one that has millions swaying to the beat with a cell-phone light in hand. Yours may be the lullaby sung in the dark night when fear is the smallest monster under the bed. The hope you offer, the words that touch souls, and the ideas that bring real life-change may come from your shadow of death as a beacon of light to follow. But it doesn’t mean your work hasn’t counted or made a difference, because that’s what art is about, right?
Even if our hearts are the only ones it heals and our souls are truly at peace, it was worth the effort. It would be enough to say, “I achieved the success I sought.”
