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It’s beginning to be pretty hilarious how a lot of the limitations I’ve set for myself are so arbitrary. I mean, why am I not allowed to explore a new software program that I have access to, for free? I could not tell you. But apparently it’s on the no-no list. God forbid I should try something new…
Anyways, I was just minding my own business, working on a bunch of stuff all at once...like you do...if you’re me and a scatterbrained artist. I was looking to edit the tail end of a music file out as I had discovered that the last few minutes, yes minutes, of it was this terrifying, make my shoulders curl in utter discomfort kind of static/noise. All this while I’m also concurrently researching for some good marketing books...and getting super distracted by totally unrelated things, like writing this.
Now, I have access to the Adobe Creative Suite...but somehow using highly professional software to fix my plebeian problem seemed inherently wrong...I know, that makes no amount of real sense once I actually thought about it.
And yet it got me thinking...after having been kickstarted by reading the mindfulness research and exercises that Gretchen Rubin talks about in The Happiness Project. Why do I just default to these weirdly specific inner “truths” I have lying around in my head so often?
The real question of why do I do some of the things I do...or, really, more truthfully, why do I not do some of the things I don’t do. For a long time I’ve wanted to do more, be more. But it was always so esoteric and undefined that I had no clue where to start. Sometimes I still feel that way but I’ve been making some real progress by being mindful.
Mindful of the things I want in life, like really want...not those things that I’m told I should like or that everyone else is doing it. It started with simply being honest with myself. An exceedingly difficult thing to do, and yet now I know that I want to write a blog, I want to continue being an artist, and, most importantly, I want to be happy.
As Gretchen says in The Happiness Project, sometimes something that makes you happy doesn’t make you feel happy all the time. It takes work to be happy. Work at being mindful of the limitations you’ve set for yourself. Maybe they were good, once upon a time. But now they stifle the forward progress you want to make.
It’s OK to reassess the rules. Sometimes they really, really, really need to be overhauled. They are outdated and need to go! It’s all a part of the journey, and you are not alone.
What weird inner “truths” do you have that are more limiting that you realized? Is it something you can shift or change? More importantly, do you want to?
PS. In other creative endeavors I’m also learning to overthrow my preconceived notions, I’m feeling much more confident in my artistic execution. I’m quite proud of the shading on this piece. Lemme introduce you to one of the player characters of our current Star Wars RPG, Mina, a bubbly, boy crazy Zeltron who is hard to not love while also leaving you, sometimes, thoroughly annoyed by their nearly indomitable spirit of 200% positivity/optimism...until your stuck in a hyperspace bubble and the world is falling apart at the seams. This is of happier times:
