Jun 23, 2017
With every movie I watch, song I listen to, book I read, teacher I learn from—I see a person who at one point was trying to make it, and maybe still is. We toss around the word "dreamer" in such an exalted way, as if it's meant for those of us who unrealistically reach for the moon and clear the stars by sheer willpower or a lucky break. After years of being a serial entrepreneur, I realize that we can stop trying to make it when we acknowledge we already have. Making it is owning that our love of a craft, creation or message, is enough. Making it is giving ourselves permission to love the process, however long and whatever is required, along the trail of becoming more confident and receiving more money for it—or even getting paid at all. Actors that win Oscars aren't wrapping their lives into a role, transforming their bodies and becoming completely different people, working 16-hour days, redoing take after take—thinking to themselves, "I sure hope I win an Oscar for this." No amount of recognition is worth the commitment it takes to birth your masterpiece.
What greater honor than to live your life doing what you love and want more of?
I recently bought a guitar for 30 bucks on eBay. It's leaning against the wall in the same triangular box it arrived in three days ago. Part of me doesn't even want to split the cardboard, because the steps to follow involve assembling the strings, tuning the guitar and practicing endlessly. It seems daunting and pointless when I really just want to be jamming like Ed Sheeran today.
"You'll know what you'll get for learning to play the guitar?" Jimmy smiled when I lamented the practice I'd have to put in before becoming Joni Mitchell, "You'll learn how to play the guitar."
"Fuck," I chuckled.