Today I was on the elliptical trainer moving to the magical tones of Tool, thinking that the drummer was awe inspiring in a dangerous way, moving the music forward with extreme force and a little malice. This kind of driving beat helps me to keep moving. I was also thinking about the huge project I will be undertaking in just 3 days (if you are just tuning in I will be writing a 50,000 word novel in the month of November as part of national novel writing month); it crosses my mind every now and then. Also, all day I’ve been rolling the concepts of success and failure around in my head and coming to a good attitude about such a monumental task.
All these thoughts kind of collided in my brain and I started thinking what if this really great drummer for some reason when he listened to his work considered it a failure. It could happen. I see people do it all the time. If you see your life or actions as either successes or failures you can easily slip into over-critiquing and lose the joy of what you are doing. Or what happens with many people, they will not try something if they don’t think they will be perceived as successful and miss out on all kinds of learning experiences and connections they could make with other people and their world. Our culture is so hypnotized by mass market culture. We are always exposed to the best and brightest, most talented and gifted people who often make us feel inadequate.
But it is about the experience not the reaction! You could be the greatest drummer in the world and still be miserable because you don’t love drumming; you are chasing perfection, and therefore feel like you are failing. But if you love drumming and you are doing it for a living, there is no way to feel like a failure.
So it all seems to come down to: If you focus on the process you may not succeed in other peoples eyes but you will learn something and you certainly can’t fail.
If you strive for perfection you might be the best, but you may never be satisfied with your success.