Strolling through an art museum gift shop in Boston several years back, I came across a mug that tickled my funny bone and has stuck with me ever since. In big Helvetica-esque letters it said, “Modern art is: I could do that… Yeah, but you didn’t.”
This phrase has been popping into my mind a lot lately. I think this is because it so accurately sums up two big things about creativity and life in general: 1) the way it’s easy to be a critic and just sit back in judgement, and 2) the importance of just plain diving in and starting to chase a big dream or take the first step toward creating something so you aren’t walking through a museum (or movie theater, or playhouse) and thinking to yourself, “hey, I once had that idea but just never did anything with it.”
Sound like a familiar thought rabbit hole to you? I’d be shocked if it didn’t…
It really is such an easy knee-jerk reaction as humans (whether we identify as creatives or not) to fall into the trap of looking at someone else’s accomplishments/creations/successes and thinking “hey, I could have done that” or “I could have done that if I was ‘lucky’ like that person and/or if I had more time.”
And, oof-ity-oof, don’t get me started on the “if I had more time” rabbit hole. Which I actually think would be more aptly described as a black hole with special peanut-butter-infused quicksand lining all entries and exits.
Back when I was working 80+-hour weeks every dang week that never seemed to let up, this issue of time came up a lot for me. Time was like a wet blanket hanging in the air just waiting to drop down and snuff out the magical spark of a new idea the second it took shape in my mind. And I wasn’t crazy to think I was hard-pressed for time back then either… My Hollywood era was one of running on coffee fumes, eating protein bars for all three meals except my one weekly-ish date night with my husband, and substituting dry shampoo for showers more often than I’ll ever admit to a living soul. The cool result: I made some insanely special TV shows and movies. The not-so-cool result: a surreal number of books, movies, TV series, and magazine articles have been coming out lately that’ve made me face-palm saying, “Holy crap, I had that exact idea a few years ago–why the fuuudge didn’t I write it?” Even more surreal than any of this? Once I recover from my initial face-palms and internal cries of “Oh, the injustice!”, I’ve generally found myself realizing that these doppelganger-like projects no longer feel like mine and that the whole situation isn’t even a small deal let alone a big one because all my creative brainpower has quite simply moved on to something new.
The more I talk to writer-peers and other creative professionals who’ve been at their crafts a while, the more I realize this phenomenon is a common one. What’s more, I’ve also come to notice that the difference between prolific people who have loads of career longevity and people who don’t tends to be the ability to brush off the ish of missed opportunities and move on to the next exciting project. This is a completely anecdotal, unscientific observation on my part, but whenever I start sliding into “woulda/shoulda/coulda” thinking I find it’s incredibly helpful to remember people I deeply admire have been there, too… Yes, we’ve all neglected to follow-through on projects with “next big thing” potential because we were instead choosing to focus on things like building video-game-marketing careers, keeping children’s fingers out of electrical sockets, or perhaps moving across the world to run film shoots. Most of us can also recall instances when we’ve had “next big thing” ideas and quite simply opted to work on a different creative idea that appealed to us more at the time. In instances like this, it can be so stupidly easy to look back with the power of hindsight and wonder why-oh-why we didn’t choose to work on what was “clearly” a hit concept, but I don’t think any answers we come up with to this question will ever offer us much value. Of far more value is taking a look at how we choose to respond in these moments of regret, FOMO, and “what ifs.”
Getting it wrong… Do you remember that scene from The Social Network (aka, “the Facebook movie”) where the Winklevoss twins are throwing a hissy fit as they implore a Harvard dean to help them punish Mark Zuckerberg for “stealing” their idea? It’s toward the end of the movie, mind you, so the dean has already done everything he can think of and ultimately says he recommends they simply move on to their next business idea. The look on their faces at this is priceless–it’s equal parts stunned, outraged, and *crickets*. In other words, these are guys who just plain don’t have a next idea, and every time I re-watch the movie I find myself thinking, “Dear God, please never let me be like them!” It should be noted that in real life the Winklevoss twins eventually achieved great success in cryptocurrency, but if we pretend reality doesn’t exist and life is a David Fincher movie I think we can all agree none of us want to be like Armie Hammer’s portrayal of the Winklevoss twins in that scene.
Getting it right… In Elizabeth Gilbert’s gangbusters-bestselling book on creativity Big Magic, she talks about a time when she started writing a novel set in the Amazon jungle but abandoned it to write a memoir about her marriage instead. After this memoir, Committed, was published, she returned to her Amazon jungle novel only to find no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t get back into it. What’s more, Gilbert soon struck up a friendship with novelist Ann Patchett only to learn she was in the midst of writing an alarmingly similar novel set in the Amazon called State of Wonder, and–oh yeah–Patchett’s novel eventually went on to become a New York Times Bestseller and make tons of best-book-of-the-year lists. So, what was Elizabeth Gilbert’s reaction to all this? Jealousy? Outrage? A bunch of unfounded lawsuits? Nope, she instead responded with laughter and a sense of pure marvel at the nature of creative muses, became even better friends with Patchett, and went on to write other bestselling books. Elizabeth Gilbert knows how to do it, y’all.
Focusing on what success “should” be ours but isn’t or what we could’ve done but didn’t robs ourselves and the world of WHAT WE CAN START DOING RIGHT NOW… And I’d venture to say we all have the ability to start doing one small next step of something pretty remarkable right here and now–yes, even if we’re so pressed for time that all we can do is share a laugh with a stranger or quickly jot an idea in a notebook. Furthermore, no matter how old we are and what we have or haven’t done thus far in our lives, we all owe it to ourselves to stop dwelling on woulda/shoulda/couldas (not to mention the little green-eyed, snarky monster of jealousy) and to just start making something instead.
So, I say do it now–take the first baby step and start something that just plain excites you today. xo, coté
Image source: Modern Art print by Craig Damrauer via Design Milk.