Another one of my former co-workers died.
He was someone I liked a lot. A simple man, hard-working. He brought his lunch to work, was dependable. And honest.
Called it like it was. Which of course offended a few people. But he didn’t care as over the years, he accumulated enough wealth to not care what people think.
No, he wasn’t rich. But he was fiscally responsible.
That fiscal responsibility allowed him to say whatever he wanted and not worry about being fired, because he could hold out until he found his next job.
However, money isn’t everything. Far from it.
I’ve only been inside my own head. I’ve never been in anyone else’s. But I can guess that when he was on his death bed after the chemo failed, he wasn’t thinking about fiscal responsibility. He more than likely had more important things on his mind.
Why am I telling you this?
Because life is short.
You may enjoy doing art. Or you may actually be an artist.
If the latter, you may be struggling. You may just be dabbing your toes in the water. Or you may be full fledged into it.
If you’re full fledged into it, I’m preaching to the choir. You can safely ignore the rest of this article.
If you’re pondering becoming an artist, then this article is for you.
There are only a few truths in life. Benjamin Franklin said it best. You’ll pay taxes. And you’re going to die.
I’m not saying that as a threat. I’m saying it as reality.
So am I. I’m going to die.
I sincerely hope that for both of us, it won’t be for a long, long time. I enjoy life. And I hope you do too.
But it will happen. You get to be you only once.
And I can tell you this.
I used to work in a retirement home. I’ve known plenty of people who died.
I can definitely tell you that of the people who died, they regretted more what they didn’t do than what they did do.
Let me say that again. You’re considerably more likely to regret what you didn’t do rather than what you did do.
So don’t go to your death bed with the regrets of not pursuing your dreams.
You can either go in slowly or all the way in
I get it. You got bills to pay.
So you can do this one of two ways. You can go in slowly. Or you can go all the way in.
I can’t tell you which one is correct. Honestly, I only know a handful of successful artists. By successful, artists who make a living doing what they want to do (not including burned out cartoonists barely scraping by working for someone else who doesn’t appreciate them. There are plenty of those!).
Either way considerably beats doing nothing. I can guarantee you one thing – doing nothing will make you regret it on your death bed.
So commit. Have a plan.
If you’re going all in, go all in.
If you’re going in slowly, have a long term plan that you have to accomplish such and such by certain dates.
I literally have the rest of my life mapped out in my journal. I have a list of accomplishments and the general order they’ll need to go in.
I know exactly where I want to be by certain years and I have a plan to reach each goal.
Now keep in mind, life sometimes get in the way of your plans. You have to be able to handle roadblocks and detours.
But to do nothing? That’s the absolute worst thing you can do.
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