Just Do You.

Tonight, I had an unexpectedly inspiring conversation with an old high school classmate, Maureen. (I am hoping to have her featured in a post at some point as she is helping me to re-design the look of Beeing Fancy!)

She has carved out a niche for herself in the creative world as she pursues her dreams. I, on the other hand, have allowed my passions and interests to take a back burner to my more traditional career pursuits.

In our talk tonight, she directed me to this little gem on YouTube:

When I was a little girl, I spent my time creating. When I was home in the summers, I made zillions of creations with clay. I drew, I crafted, I painted, I made outfits for my dolls, I styled their “houses.” When I was in high school, I pursued my interests in writing; I wrote poetry and stories (some of which were even featured in small publications), I took art classes and photography classes and loved each and every one of them; but I also spent a great deal of time studying for Advanced Placement European History, or working through lunches to force pre-calc equations into my already exploding brain space.

Long story short, I allowed my truest interests to take a back burner to what I felt I “should” be doing: studying, math-ing, working my arse off, etc. In time, I lost my focus and fell deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of “shoulds” and “norms” and further away from Me.

 

The fact of the matter is that nothing is easy: believe you me, when you’re working at any job, you will be met with challenges. Creative pursuits have an additional caveat: talent takes time to develop. Just like the seven-year-old Brittany who had brilliant plans for creating large-scale theatrical props, but lacked the supplies, grasp of compositional concepts,  and general know-how, the end products of a creative mind rarely match the ideas we have in our heads, and when they don’t, we feel like failures.

The moral of my story is simple: no effort, particularly towards creative pursuits, is a failed effort. Every thing that you concoct, create, transform or beautify is a work of art. It is unique and you and uniquely you and that is an amazing thing.

We as people are far more likely to cut some slack for someone climbing a corporate ladder than we are the aspiring creator who falls. The corporate ladder is something that we understand a little bit better. For the most part, it is quantifiable and understandable. Styling, crafting, creating and imagining are more abstract.

For some of you, the more “traditional” course of action may be what’s right for you; maybe you want to be a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, a pilot— those trajectories are well-known and relatively clear. For the rest of you, my aspiring Coco Chanels, my actors and actresses, my writers, my set-stylers, my designers: don’t give up. Never trade in you for the “shoulds.” And no matter who you are, whether you’re the designer or the engineer, just do one thing. The one thing that you do best: you.

Just. Do. You.

xoxo

Bee