When I came back from hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, I was on cloud nine.
I felt euphoric.
Ecstatic.
Invincible.
I mean… I had just hiked 4200 kilometers. I felt ready to tackle any obstacles ahead.
I rushed back into life. The busy life.
“No post-trail blues for me”, I thought… A million ideas about the future swarming through my mind.
I got a temporary job.
And another.
And another.
All to make sure I would have plenty options to work when it suited me.
Maximum flexibility.
These temp-jobs were to make ends meet, to put food on the table. Until I found something long-term that I felt I could to fully commit to. To give my heart and soul to.
All the while working any of those shifts, I would be fantasizing about the things I’d rather be doing. I thought about creating. I’d visualize projects, organize ideas in my head. Pictures, snap-shots, frames, video’s, songs, music.
I have a vivid imagination, and if dreaming were a national sport, I’d bet good money on myself making it onto the all-star-team.
When at home, every spare minute, I would be working on articles for Mind Stories, making drawings, scouring the internet for inspiring photo’s, film, music. But so far I wasn’t putting any of that work out there. I started a million projects, but had trouble finishing them. Or when I would almost finish an article, I would put it on a shelf, because the follow-up articles were not “ready” yet.
Ironically, in my experience, creative work is hardly ever finished. There is always something that can be changed or improved. Because as humans we’re constantly changing. We’re very fluid creatures.
And so my perception and ideas are subject to change too. Which makes it harder to lock in the point where you say: ‘It is done’.
My work-approach felt like consistent procrastination from perfectionism.
But there is no such thing as perfect…
The thing holding me back was fear.
Fear that what I wanted to put out there, would not be considered good enough for the world to appreciate.
Fear of revealing too much of myself and leaving myself vulnerable.
Fear of being obliterated by the other peoples sharp tongues and critique.
And so I found myself filling every spare second I had, working on my creative world without showing it to the outside world. Hiding.
I enjoyed doing the work immensely; it feels good, safe and fulfilling to create. But it was still hiding.
And looking back at the pace at which I was doing said work, something was not right. I grafted as if the world was coming to an end. Pressuring myself into fictitious deadlines. Like I was working on high-stakes million-dollar deals.
Why was I rushing like crazy?
Probably because of fear to lose inspiration. I was afraid that my ability to create, could be taken away.
That the thing I loved doing most, would cease to exist.
Also, I was working under an invalid assumption, an unsustainable frame:
That when you’re doing something that you love, it does not cost any energy, and you can just keep going.
That that is inaccurate, I found that out the hard way.
Rapidly I was burning through my fuel while working shifts that I couldn’t wait to get away from. Then, when back home, I would lose myself in creation. Getting by on a minimum amount of sleep, fitting in plenty of energy draining work-outs during the day, to remain ‘fit’ and ‘healthy’. Unknowingly I was burning the candle at both ends. If it would have been a 3-sided candle, I would have burned that third end too.
Like I said;
Unsustainable.
But when nothing stops you, it’s hard to recognize that slowing down might be beneficial in the long run…
Yes, Captain Hindsight and I go back quite some time…
And so, during another stressful, overstimulated day, I was not paying attention to my surroundings. I was miles away from feeling grounded. My mind rushing on any of the million tasks and ideas I had set myself to. In a hurry, and looking at the device I was carrying in my hands, I paced towards what I thought was the exit of the hallway…
and smashed head-first into a glass-plate window.
Leaving me with a concussion.
Inevitably, I had hit a (glass) wall.
For some time now, I have been recovering.
Taking it slow.
Consciously getting to terms with the universes abrupt way of forcing me to slow down.
No such thing as coincidence…
But as always, there’s a lesson in every fall… as I will talk about in The Road to Discovery (Part II).
Vector courtesy of Thijs Franken
