Day one is here.
Thanks to all of you, I have felt overwhelming encouragement to pursue my dream as a full-time artist. It is certainly never something I envisioned, but somehow it has come to be. Franklin Arts is now my full-time endeavor, passion, and career.
Like I think all of us do, I have pursued many things in life and pondered the pursuit of many things, all with the intention of finding my "purpose." It was unbearable at times to know that I could vanish from this planet without finding a way to leave my mark on it. It wasn't because I hadn't tried, and that was the worst part.
Day one came mainly because I slowly shifted my perspective and redefined the meaning of life's "purpose."
I realized it wasn't just going to be something that clobbered me over the head one day. Instead, I understood that I must look back in my experiences to understand what it was I wanted. You don't know what you want until you've tried it. Because I was devoted to try things, learn about them, and figure out different pieces of what I liked about each of them, it was inevitable that I would find something, like art, to passionately pursue because most elements within the craft is what I enjoyed most.
Sometimes we just have to let time pass to discover what is right.
The passage of time allows us to care less about what other people think and to truly start understanding ourselves. We must stop being so hard on ourselves to find our purpose. Instead, for me, it was beneficial to become acutely aware in each moment of a new experience. I challenged myself to not only enjoy that moment, but to understand why. This took years to tabulate a list of must-haves.
Most of us need to "ease into" our dream.
We are too scared to jump in head-first. This is okay. It took me seven years to convince myself that I was ready to pursue a dream head-on. Heck, I had to learn that it was a real dream. I had to discover that I loved creating art and could put up with all the stuff that surrounds the challenge of making a living from it. Putting up with the things that suck about something is almost more important than loving the good parts about it. I needed time to know that I could deal with every aspect of it. This is called confidence. Some unique individuals have blind faith. Most people are probably like me and need a lot of evidence to prove that something can (and will) happen.
Purifying my time helped me see my joys more clearly and quickly.
I think a big problem today is that there's just so much to do. Not so much you HAVE to do, but so much you CAN do. The endless options have a way of eating our time, leaving nothing for self reflection. This was happening to me. Earlier this year, our family had no other choice but to drastically reduce TV time. I couldn't believe how this simple change added so much focus, peace, and fulfillment to my life. Rather than wasting hours staring at a screen, I was filling the time with something more meaningful. This is truly when my dream started to materialize in my mind. Each idea and task started to fill in the puzzle of what it was I needed to do to feel like I could actually pursue the dream.
For most of us, nothing will happen unless others believe in us.
It's sad really, but I think it's true.
It goes back to the confidence thing again. We are energized by positive peer feedback. The reassurance is extra fuel that gets our engines running faster. I think most artists agree that this ingredient is essential. Art without its purpose of relating or moving someone seems like a waste. The good news for me is that this feedback comes incredibly easy whether I like it or not. People like my art or they don't. They either buy my art or they don't. Given that enough people have made their judgement positively, I have built up enough fuel over the years to keep my engines running. My wife Meaghan, family, and friends serve as extra boosts to carry me through any self doubt or challenging parts of this journey. I owe them everything.
In this journey past day one, I hope that I can help others give their dream a try. I hope that this major step in my life can be more than just a single blog post. I desire to transform my learning moments into actionable steps to help you if even in the smallest way possible.
