On his 18th birthday, the son says to his parents: "I'm going to clown school, I am going to become a clown" at which the parents instantly begin to tell him all the problems he will have to deal with, how being a clown is not a real job, how insecure and fickle his future will be, and wouldn't a business course be a better option. A girl in her first year at law suddenly announces that she is going to quit and start art classes instead. Her family quickly do a phone-around to find out if something bad has happened, is she on drugs, what has gone wrong, why would she do something so irresponsible? A farmer sits down at the dinner table, sighs heavily and then tells his wife that he wants to sell the farm and move to the city, he wants to run a coffee shop. A single mother with two children decides to move to Hawaii, she wants her children to love life, to enjoy nature and live at a slow enough pace to be able to notice all that happens in their lives. A husband comes home from his dead-end work and tells his wife he wants to go back to the studies in medicine he dropped out of; at which his wife immediately begins to worry about the bills. A little girl jumps up in her fathers lap and tells him she wants to be a an astronaut when she grows up, her father pats her on the head and says: "Everything is possible, we'll see, we'll see, now run along and get your mother for me". "Linda, who's been putting these silly notions in Arielle's head?" the man asks his wife.
Regardless of cultural setting, many of us hold expectations on what we consider to constitute a "proper" life.
Often we are expected to follow in our parents/caretakers footsteps, carry on the family traditions, or at least variations of such.
Many of our expectations consist of things we feel we have to do to satisfy the requirements placed on being "successful"= a winner. If we were to fail those expectations, there is the possibility that we may find ourselves feeling like losers= "unsuccessful". Winning; being a success; has become a measure of a persons worth in many societies. If a person is a winner because they deserve it, does the same apply for a loser? If you lose, the underpinning is often that there is something wrong with you, you are the problem, you are not good enough, so the pressure of being a winner is permeating most societies. Problem is, who sets the standard of what constitutes success or failure? Maybe we need to ask more questions.
If we shift our outlook and view events not in terms of successes or failures, just outcomes, then every outcome is another experience, an opportunity for learning. Life goes on, we can't go back, but we can do things differently, find new ways. If we desire a different outcome, we need to behave and think differently, move in the direction of the outcomes we desire.
As an autodidact artist, my way forward is to make mistakes. Actually, come to think of it, for me there really are no mistakes, only less desirable outcomes. Many marvellous and exciting discoveries on the canvas have come about through "mistakes", actually,..... I have even found my very own painting technique through it, I'm happy to say.
If we were not so burdened by fear of failure, or the pressure to succeed, would we maybe attempt more creative, joyfull, spontaneous pursuits?
Who says one can't try a different path? Does everyone really have to do the same thing? Is there only one way to live a life? Who decides what the acceptable way to think, be, and behave, is?
A person can be wealthy, yet own nothing, a person can deem him/herself successful in his/her own eyes, yet be regarded as a failure in others.
"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome" (Booker T. Washington)
If your desire is to do something different to what you are presently doing, change.
If your desire is to behave differently to how you are presently behaving, change.
If your desire is to be somebody differently to who you are, change.
We may not be able to turn our backs on our social structures and systems, but we can shift the way we measure our worth and the way we view the world we live in.
You wanna be a clown? Go for it. You wanna swim with dolphins? Go for it. You wanna be a person who is treated with respect? Be respectable. You wanna follow your dreams? Go for it.
Life only happens now.
No comments:
Post a Comment