Why It Took Me So Long To Embrace What I Want To Be Doing
March 25, 2011
Fear.
Not fear of failure or fear of difficulty, but fear of rejection, ridicule and criticism.
It seems so ironic to me, that in one breath I can confidently exhale a position I believe is right, then inhale with an all consuming, suffocating, paralyzing apprehension that what I just shared will be rejected.
I think how I got around this in the design industry was with the label "client work."
That wonderful word "client" always provided an escape route to owning the design concept (and all the mental exertion, creative adrenaline, and soul) that went into its creation. If it came under fire by fellow designers or potential clients with the oh-so-dreaded words "I don't like that" or "I don't get it" you could always pass the buck to the client.
(What the cao do you mean you don't get it?! I just poured eighty one hours of creativity and soul into this concept so that your boring, lame spice POS product or service would actually have a chance of surviving the technological upheaval that devours small businesses like your's every single hour of every single day. But fine, I can make the logo bigger and add some more clutter.)
But did I say that? No.
Instead, I replied "OK, that makes sense. My apologies, obviously I misunderstood your 'something that really pops' directive. Let me go back to the drawing board (albeit this time full of loathsome resentment for you and your crappy widget) and quarter-heartedly pull something together simply so I can bill you for the remaining balance as quickly as possible because I have kids to pay and bills to feed.)
Over. And over. And over again.
But not so with ideas.
I can't say "the Patriot Act is toxic legislation and we're all a bunch of pansies for quietly accepting it in our lives" then back off that idea with "well, I didn't really mean that. No, you totally misunderstood me. I LOVE warrantless, government spying. Here, I'll voluntarily tap my own phone, just to save you the trouble. We cool?"
Yes, there's no client to pass the buck to with ideas. And blaming bad Chinese or pizza or fatigue only works a few times before you sound like a convictionless wank face.
Each time I hoped the next client would be better. And each time a part of my creative soul fell off into the abyss.
But to keep up the charade of professional designer guy I had to continue to chip off pieces of my creative (and probably way-too-black-and-white) soul in exchange for bill paying resources.
(And as a quick side note, is there anything more blood
curdling annoying than running across the one-in-a-hundred-thousand-designers who actually get hired because they tell clients to go to hell?)
Arrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn you design industry publications for holding those chosen/lucky few as the magna carta for all us other schleps. If we tell our $4,000 client to go to hell our ramen noodle budget is cut in half, our internet gets turned off, and we have collection agencies breaking down our doors to collect on past due bills.
My solution? Surprisingly I didn't have one. Well, other than ending it all by leaping in front of a bus, or pulling a toy gun on a cop, but those were dark days I will rejoicingly leave in the past. Thankfully, providence's guiding hand had a solution and it consisted of forcing me off the grid.
Yes, providence has been agonizingly prying my stubborn fingers from the "business school conventional formulas" for running a successful business and forcing me to stare down what I actually want to do before I trepidaciously draw my last breath and think, one last time, before it all goes dark, "Why was I such a man pleasing sucker?"
So, with the exception of designing some stuff for our church and two of our friends, I have, for the last year, been leaving graphic design in the past.
How you ask?
It has not been easy, and almost entirely contains none of my own planning or doing, but a bullet list of activities include:
Driving a forklift, in a warehouse, at 3am, four or five days a week. Yes, you read that right. I am a certified forklift driver in the great state of my residence.
Teaching tennis. I shelled out the dues to become a USPTA certified teaching instructor and have been teaching 5 or 6 lessons a week (I figure my dad jamming a racket in my hand when I was 3 has to have some sort of purpose, right?)
Moving in with family. Sucky right? Well, if you have to move in with family, I hope you're lucky enough to have as cool a one as the one we moved in with. We met them one day in the Goodwill parking lot and next thing you know, we've been living with them for two years. I jest of course. They are biological. At least that's the impression I've been under for several years.
Crazily enough, my wife was kind and loving enough to willingly apply for, and get a job at one of her favorite retailers while I traversed this pre-mid-life, sovereign-ball-busting desert.
(Come to find out, it had more to do with her doubts of me, as a living human, continuing as a going concern, than with a desire to be working, but nevertheless she has rocked at her job, been promoted a couple of times and generally is awesome.)
Part of this process has involved identifying what my entrepreneur's group deems as
my "hedgehog" concept, which is the center of interests, talents, and economic drivers. I have painstakingly taken tests identifying interests, talents, desires, etc. (All you "whatever your hand finds to do" and "Found: God's Will" cookie cutter answeristas - myself included - can politely keep to yourselves at the moment) and recurring themes include:
- logic
- mind
- debate
- knowledge
- articulation
- arguing
Aesthetic is there, but it's not primary. You've seen the progression of this evolution in incremental stages. Setting up an opinion section at the beginning of 2010, launch of Candor Club last summer, the addition of Soapbox at the beginning of 2011. I'm currently in the process of incorporating two other major content focuses into the content hierarchy as well.
To be quite frank, and to wrap this up so I can get ready for an annual charity event my wife and I are attending, I nearly killed myself (soberingly literal) living as a schizophrenic slave to the business school question "What opportunities can be exploited in order to make money?" I'm so sick of that question, and so resentful of business school for postulating it in the first place, I have rarely been able to put it into words.
So, I'm back to answering the naive question, which rests somewhere in the combination of "What has God given me talents for?" "What will make me happy?" "What interests me?" "What are my passions?" "How can I exert my energies for good?"
Wow, I sound like Rick Warren, but I promise I'm as reformed as they come. Well, OK, maybe not as reformed as they come, but on a sliding scale of 0 to 5, I'm a 5.
And, undoubtedly, there was a psychotic, modern-evangelical error crushing me during this time (and farther back), which started in the late 1990's when my youth pastor told me "playing college tennis is not godly" thus setting in motion a six or seven year long journey of being "spiritual" via pursuing a full-time call to the ministry.
The weight of that unnecessary and burdensome piece of theological garbage has been gloriously lifted and is fading into the background, along with all the other wet, gritty, fibrous dross it, and the business school question, tangled my judgement in.
If you want to participate in a voluntary economic transaction by becoming a Candor Club or Soapbox member, needless to say, I'd be honored.
If you're having doubts about paying for content, read "Why My Site Has A 'Dreaded' Pay Wall."
And, finally, if you've expressed encouragement or support during the last year of so, thank you.
* This post could be subtitled, "Namely, Writing About, Arguing For and Defending Positions - Culturally, Theologically, Politically - I Believe Are Good, Right, True and Beneficial to Me, My Family, and Society in General"