I have been contemplating deeply about what enthuse me in life lately- I thought after going through some good years of schooling, I am all prepared for the work field, and I was clear that I am going to do good, be creative, and live a wonderful life of working and learning. I have done a lot of reality checks prior to graduation - I interned, freelanced, registered a company. I thought I had all the right tools to get started and to be ahead; however, something stroke me hard lately. I have came to the conclusion that I have been too ambitious and desperate, I wanted to do everything, and to learn everything but I have not allow the time for myself to mature and grow. For example, I am a communication designer, I am in photography, interaction design, web design, environmental design, interior design (and the list goes on and on); in a nutshell, I wanted to be able to do everything - theoretically and practically. However, with all these in mind, I have been quite frantic at grasping everything but not mastering anything. I have been mad and discouraged at myself for not learning quick enough. Nonetheless, if I reverse my thinking, take a deep breath, and tell myself I have a span of a life time to learn and master crafts, why cram to have cramps? Rome wasn’t created in a day and mastering will take years.
I didn’t know why this mentality of rushing kept on escalating, or why this thought was implemented in the first place. Hypothetically, we, the North Americans like things done efficiently. Evidences can be found through fast food culture, assembly lines, and industrialization of factories etc. I guess my assembly line was confused. Usually, the person/machine at the assembly line takes one command at a time, but I gave too many commands and too short of a deadline.
After a long self reflection (perhaps few minutes, no, I am just joking), I have few ideas to share:
- Hold realistic goals
- Don’t rush yourself, allow yourself to learn and to grow as a professional. Your expectation/eye for perfection is always going to be higher thank your skill level, but you need to time to sharpen these artistry.
- Step at a time, just do what you need to do, it doesn’t matter if you are not doing the most glamorous work at this moment. Consider this: little moments add up.
- Quit procrastinating - we are not born with lazy genes, habits are acquired and learned.
- Take care of your mind and body.
It wasn’t my plan to make this blog post sound like articles you find in a well-being magazine; I cannot deny it hold some truth and weight for me. If you find yourself agitated, consider slowing down, take a deep breath, just do and be, it really takes time to grow and flourish.
Design + Illustration
