The Other Side
Image by Viktor Forgaks
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the way people make their own meaning, not just from creative works, but from life in general. It’s interesting how our perceptions and opinions are influenced by our own make up - a culmination of various adventures and interactions filtered through the lens of our own experiences and particular ways of being.
When I was younger, I heard the Dale Carnegie story, “Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the mud, the other saw the stars.” I took to it to be a fable about choosing what you focus on and while that’s true, there’s also something in there about people having individual takes on an otherwise shared moment, all because of who we are, how we be, and the way we see and experience the world. We can grow up in the same house, with the same parents, the same meals, the same emotional environment, and yet have vastly different experiences than our siblings. In a class, we can have the same teacher, the same classmates, the same assignment, and have incredibly different takeaways than our peers simply because of who we are and our own experience with life. This is something I love about writing prompts – how everyone approaches them differently. I love the variety of stories that emerge, and ways they can be told, all around the same prompt. Variety is the spice of life after all. And we each experience life differently, which is fascinating to me.
As creatives, we can’t help but take part of ourselves into our work. Thoughts on past experiences, hopes for the future, various emotions, shadows, desires, and dreams all along the process, often filter into our art. And that is our secret sauce. Who we are not only influences what and how we create, but also how we perceive the process of creation, and the final product (as well as how we perceive other people’s creations). Our unique experiences with life inevitably shape some facet of the story our art tells, or the message it shares.
Whether they’re about birth or illness, camping or family drama, festivals or road trips, brushes with the extraordinary or gut-wrenching despair, tales of hilarious adventures, of falling in love, of triumph or travesty – whatever the tale, everyone has one. And though we may share some of the same life experiences (like birth or death or road trips), our stories are our own. The story of who we are, where we’ve walked, how we’ve grown and what we’ve learned along the way is unique to each of us. And just like the tale with the guys and the prison bars, there is more than one side to every story.
Photo by Ryan Hutton
We’ve all seen the success stories - the debut novelist who landed a film deal, the football player who went pro after half a semester of college, the entrepreneur who quit their day job and became a multimillionaire in a few short years, the artist whose creation sparked bidding wars, the breakout actor, the chart-topping band, and on and on. We can look at those people, those experiences, and dismiss that level of success as “luck” or some other thing that we perceive as different than ourselves. We can look at the big success stories and be completely unaware that there is another side, the side we don’t often see in the celebratory headlines or the press train.
We don’t see the focused development of certain skills, or the years of practice showing up with excellence. We don’t see the massive investment into personal work, or the failed attempts, the days as a beginner, the sacrifices made (whether time, financial, relationships, etc.). We don’t see the painstaking mindset work, the creeping doubt and all it took to keep the resistance at bay and just keep going with the slow and steady boring stuff of honing and refining and believing big, even when others may have said it wasn’t a viable dream or a successful venture. Even when others saw mud, the people with success stories saw stars. And kept going for them.
And we are no different. While we may not all have press coverage, we each have some kind of success story right along with the backend work that many people never see. And all of it, the work we’ve done, the experiences we’ve lived, the things we’ve thrived on, and the things we’ve endured. The things we’ve survived, pursued, accomplished, and failed. All of it makes up who we are, and the stories we tell (both to ourselves, and to others). It makes up what we have to offer, and the lens through which we uniquely see the world, and present it to others. All of it, the light and the shadow – what is seen and experienced, whether publicly or privately, is our unique path to success. And even that (success), will look different for each of us. I hope you’ll take some time today to celebrate. Celebrate all that you’ve experienced, all that you are, and let it filter into your work. No one else can create your art or tell your story. And no one else can tell the story or create the art the way that You do. Here’s to embracing what makes us who we are. To acknowledging the mud and focusing on the stars.
Keep going.