LESSONS FROM HISTORY
Creatives often sit on a merry-go-round of fears. We face the giants over and over again as each generation comes. They come with different faces and different names, but hold the same voice. What if we can’t? What do we know? What if we try and find we never had anything worth saying? It doesn’t matter what kind of creative you are- graphic artist, animator, photographer, author, musician, you have heard those same echoes among your doubts. They say history repeats itself, only if we paid attention to it, I don’t think it would have to. After all, few of us enjoy sitting through the exact history class twice, why would our lives be any different? You don’t have to spend your life reliving history- reliving doubts.
Walt Disney was fired from one of his first jobs and told ‘he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.’ Can you imagine how that echoed in his mind? Through the days after and the years of trials facing bankruptcy and carelessly signed contracts. Disney wasn’t always the most savvy business man, it is something he learned through trial and error. Disney didn’t always know how to create an animated classic, he started with what he could do and went on from there. Disney didn’t always have friends who believed in what he was doing, in fact he even had friends who gave up on him in the thick of it. Sure that he would go nowhere despite the best intentions. Thankfully, Disney didn’t need millions of dollars in his bank account, fans, a large company full of faithful employees, or success on his first attempts to validate his own creative mind. Take a lesson from history- you don’t need it either.
A. A. Milne went to college for mathematics, although we all know him today as the beloved author of, Winnie the Pooh. He began a successful career as a mathematician while writing poetry on the side. Eventually he decided to try his hand at writing plays. He was strongly discouraged from doing so, simply because he was already successful at something. Milne wrote plays anyways. Encountering success in the playwright industry, he moved on to writing the many adventures of Winnie the Pooh. He once said that, ‘the only excuse he could ever find to do anything is that he wanted to do it.’ Even after the immense success and classics created through children’s books, Milne still moved on to a new genre- adult mysteries. See, Milne didn’t need a degree or to be given permission to pursue something new- he only needed an idea and the discipline to do it. Take a lesson from history- you don’t need it either.
These two out of the countless creatives in history show that creatives don’t need validation or permission to create. So don’t bother repeating history searching for validation or permission, it’s already been done. If you exist, you matter, point blank that is the only validation you need. You don’t need to be a billionaire or a household name to validate your desire to create, write a story, or paint a picture. You just need an idea and the discipline to do it.
Although history can repeats itself, it is often made when something is done for the first time or has rarely occurred. Today as a creative you can do something that is rarely done- you can have confidence.
Drop the doubts, begin the journey. Who you are and how you dream does matter.
Trust me, I’m confident on this one.