Light your own fire…
Such a heartbreaking week, so much depressing, cruel news around the world. I think many people were especially devastated by the shocking suicide of Robin Williams. I think many people felt that if someone of his stature and achievements had nothing to live for…well, what hope for the rest of us? We have to create our own hope. We should remember Robin with the empathy he deserves–we all deserve–as a flawed human, and do our best to keep moving forward. It’s so easy to judge and seek false courage in our fear, meanwhile it’s so difficult to live….If Robin Williams ever made you laugh, or cry, or think, mentally kiss his hands and wish him well on his journey.
In the meantime, I routinely get requests from people who tell me they want to write a book, or a screenplay, or whatever, but they want my advice as to how they can reignite their spark. These people are fancy. They don’t seem to realize that the muse is flighty, so frequently they’re going to have to work without her kiss on their clear, pure brow.
Listen, I can motivate you. I can give you a thousand and one time-saving, inspiring strategies… but at a certain point, the only thing left to do is get to work. At a certain point, work is more important than motivation. At a certain point, you reignite your spark by working in the dark, and reminding yourself of why you wanted to write/act/paint/whatever in the first place. You reignite your spark by doing the work, even when you desperately don’t want to, because that determination, that desperation, will lead you to a place where you, eventually, won’t have to work as hard.
And that determination, that grit, that consistency is what separates the winners from the losers: winners will work when they truly don’t want to, losers will seek excuses. But excuses are also choices, and we only waste our own time… so choose wisely.
Whatever it is you’re trying to do, whether it’s transiting to a new career, or writing an opera, you’re going to have to get used to running on empty, to working through exhaustion and frustration, to doing what you can with what you have, until you can create what you need. Some days it’ll work, some days it won’t, but if you don’t try, it’ll never work. You’ll never work and then what will you have…? So many of us are so quick to give up… but even if you give up, you still have to live through those small hours….
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