The Trouble with Greatness
“We often want it so badly we ruin it before it begins. Overthinking. Fantasizing. Imagining. Expecting. Worrying. Doubting. Just let it evolve naturally. ”
The trouble with success is this ... you are expected to keep being/doing better. Don't get me wrong there is nothing bad about being better or doing better than your past, it's how we grow, but sometimes that pressure becomes so great it is paralysing and consequently we do nothing.
Now, I personally am not referring to any life altering, world changing pressure. The world will not stop spinning, lives will not be lost or wars won because my fear stopped my progression or I did not surpass my own greatness. But here's the thing, no matter how irrational or unfounded my thoughts may be, they are no less troublesome to me.
So where I am going with all this is here, my first blog post on this website was great (if I do say so). Read it here, if you haven't already. It is moving, profound, personal. It is well written and I am proud enough of it to actually want the world to read it (world I hope you are reading thing) but I had to follow that up with something else, something equal to or better than that. Sure, all the pressure was placed upon me by me but it's still real to me. It turns out that maybe I'm not as profound or poetic as I like to think I am (damn!), well written words do not flow out of me like water from a Mount Franklin spring and poetry ... let's not even go there. So what did I do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only thing I could think of was that post, that moment of greatness and nothing else could flow.
I knew that the best way to overcome this was to do something, anything, and that's where all this rambling post came from - lucky you and that's basically all I've got (for now).
Here is something to take away from all this:
- you don't continually have to top yourself, two steps forward, one step back is still progress.
- the best way to grow is to keep trying. If the fear of your own past greatness becomes overwhelming, don't stop, keeping doing/making whatever and even if it's shit (and sometimes it will be) know that you will never produce awesomeness if you do nothing.
- I'm a photographer, not a writer, I hope you at least got through paragraph one before figuring that one out. Damn, now you know my secret.
- I'm clearly a chronic overthinking. Do you think there's an annoymas program for that??
- Here's some pretty photos for reading through all of that.
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