Recognize the Wins
I just found out that I will be published in the PIEA journal, the first and only (to my knowledge), peer reviewed journal about photography.
It is easier sometimes to recognize when everything is going wrong rather than when something goes right. I am not an optimist, so when things do pan out well I usually write them off or underplay them. But I am trying to change my outlook. I am trying to be a better proponent of myself.
This is a win. Getting an article published in Rangefinder is also a win. I still have a lot of things that I have done that have not gone anywhere, not received note, merit, or award, but now I have two wins. So all of the effort I have put forward hasn't been for nothing, hasn't been a waste. My networking, my hard work, my attention to my writing has paid off. In one of these two cases, that will be literal.
I think it is important to list the wins. I think it is important to understand that progress has been made in order to continue to make progress, to continue to take steps. Being in an artistic field requires that you find a sort of self motivation to keep moving. Right now I am high on life, but in a week or a month I will be questioning things again. But having this, remembering this, cherishing this is perhaps where the fuel for the self motivation comes from. I am just glad that I can see it now. I hope to continue to see the wins and allow the losses to exist for their reasons without assuming I should quit and die. (Dramatic, I know, but that's me.)
Recognize the wins, my friends. It may be the only way to keep moving forward in this artistic life.
It is easier sometimes to recognize when everything is going wrong rather than when something goes right. I am not an optimist, so when things do pan out well I usually write them off or underplay them. But I am trying to change my outlook. I am trying to be a better proponent of myself.
This is a win. Getting an article published in Rangefinder is also a win. I still have a lot of things that I have done that have not gone anywhere, not received note, merit, or award, but now I have two wins. So all of the effort I have put forward hasn't been for nothing, hasn't been a waste. My networking, my hard work, my attention to my writing has paid off. In one of these two cases, that will be literal.
I think it is important to list the wins. I think it is important to understand that progress has been made in order to continue to make progress, to continue to take steps. Being in an artistic field requires that you find a sort of self motivation to keep moving. Right now I am high on life, but in a week or a month I will be questioning things again. But having this, remembering this, cherishing this is perhaps where the fuel for the self motivation comes from. I am just glad that I can see it now. I hope to continue to see the wins and allow the losses to exist for their reasons without assuming I should quit and die. (Dramatic, I know, but that's me.)
Recognize the wins, my friends. It may be the only way to keep moving forward in this artistic life.
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