Sunday, March 31, 2013

The arrow and the wind

My dreams:

1) To be a part of something greater than myself - to be a part of something big that I can't do on my own. To work with a team of people I care about to accomplish something together, and in the end relish and savor the victory of success.

2) The slight opposite of my first dream, I want to succeed as an artist in my own right, without being part of a team. To have my art be its own identity. To have people say, OH that's a Tiffanny drawing! I like her style! To be a master at drawing so that I can freely express myself, like I can with speaking or writing.

3) To have my art say something meaningful to the world - For someone to be touched by the message of whatever I have to say, whether it's a laugh or a cry, or a sigh. For images to mean something, rather than just "This is a cute girl, This is a good concept drawing of a unicorn, or monkey" I want people to be struck emotionally, in some way, like, "OMG that's so funny!" or, "I cried when the same thing happened to me"

In the last few years, so many personal battles have allowed me to lose sight of my life goals. I'm reiterating it right now, for clarity's sake. I will be an arrow, pointed at these goals, and I will hit every one of them. Life is too short to meander along.

Some people are wind.

The wind is only your friend when it is behind you. Otherwise it is either pushing you down, pushing you back, pushing you sideways, and throwing things at you. People like this cannot be in your life, if you are to hit your mark perfectly. Some dreams are hard enough without people like this around.

Dreams can be very very fragile. Few people have dreams anymore because they get abandoned so easily. Giving up is so very easy. Inaction is far easier than action. Looking around me, meeting so many people, I've heard it so many times people saying "I always wanted to ____ but it seemed too hard so I became ____  instead". I hear people say, "As much as I want ____ my heart isn't in it anymore". Your dreams are worth protecting and fighting for. Fight for the people you love, fight for the career you want, fight for the recognition, the money, the car? You want a hot body? whatever. In that movie, Pursuit of Happyness, the character Chris Gardner says to his son "You want it? go get it, period."

I have been in such bad shape lately. I used to be the girl who hit my goals no matter what. I exercised 6 days a week without fail (for 10 years, no matter how busy I got), I worked on my art daily. I exercised my dog regularly. I fed my brain with books. But just yesterday, I started wondering about what the point of life is. Why I work so hard to find myself feeling so alone and sad. I cried until I had nothing left, I was so depressed. That's not me. How have I become this way? I have lost sight of the big picture. The big three goals I've always had that I've been chasing. I got lazy and I lost sight of it. I can see it again, and I'm going to go get it, period.