Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda
Today I have been reminded by someone very close to me about what he perceives to be all my failings to act in the past. I find the entire exercise unproductive. I am also finding it a negative experience as he goes on and on about it, which has been taking up far too much time in my brain housing group. Of course before he started nattering on I didn’t know what today’s blog was going to be about and now I do.
I can learn from the past to be sure, but I refuse to beat myself up about what may have been. The past is gone. Nothing I do today will change it.
I can only do what I do today. Sure I can make plans for tomorrow, but action only occurs in the present.
The first day to do anything is now. The first day to start that learning a new language, exercise program, diet, marketing plan, cooking class, get spending under control, start that painting, take up underwater-basket-weaving, or whatever evil little shoulda that is hanging out in your brain housing group is today. It is do or not do. TRY is the precursor to failure.
If you don’t do, “why not” can be a valid educational analysis but it should not stop you from acting tomorrow when tomorrow becomes today. “I failed to act yesterday” is not a reason to not act today. Nor is there a chastisement to be applied to the failure to act yesterday; “I failed to act yesterday” does not mean “I am a bad person” or “I am a failure”; it simply is, in the past, unchangeable. “I failed to act yesterday because I watched SciFi reruns all day” may be a call to change behavior, change priorities or whatever, but again it implies no value judgment in and of itself; it is a call to action.
Beware of the shouldas that do not properly belong to you. Some people live vicariously through other people and will implant shouldas in the unwary people they hold influence over. If you are a little pudgy, but not unhealthy, and someone is berating you about being fat maybe that is a shoulda you need to ignore. Maybe the proper shoulda on your list today is to tell your nag where to get off, or maybe it is just to ignore them.
I should blog more often (as a marketing tool) is one of the shouldas in my list, also I need to paint more, and I need improve on my marketing efforts in general. These artistic goal centric efforts are competing with a million other shouldas in my life. Prioritizing shouldas requires you to develop a selfish streak. I am no Objectivist, or Existentialist, but from the creative standpoint Ayn Rand or Søren Kierkegaard did present ideas that may resonate with you. If your true goal is to be an independent creative person, you must understand that those around you think you are nuts, wasting your time with pie-in-the-sky ideas, and need to find something sensible to do with your life. They are more than willing to load up your plate with well-intended should ofs. I believe that after satisfying your basic needs of food and roof-over-your-head, your next priority has to be creative goal-centric, not cleaning your house, fixing the drip in the kitchen faucet, responding to irrelevant email, blogging perhaps, dealing with continuous demands of significant others…
The act of creation is selfish; it is fulfilling a need in you that others may not understand. These others are more than happy to convey to you their displeasure with your chosen path over and over again. They will also remind you over and over again how your effort has failed in the past thus proving their thesis that you need to be doing something else; they, of course, will also tell you what that something else woulda, coulda, shoulda been. If you have not done so already it is time to banish these unproductive ghosts from your mind.
So having completed my blog and marketing effort for the day, and banished my unproductive ghost via this blog, I will move on to other selfish pursuits in the now.
I am curious, having now espoused my philosophy regarding the creative effort, how do you make time for your art?
Yours in Art,
-Jake
Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!
PS. I am still looking for Sponsors & Contributing Patrons to help me pay the estimated $8000 it is going to cost me to attend this event. Every little bit helps.