Get up! Get up!

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

Dutch Post-Impressionist painter, Vincent van Gogh, was born on this day in 1853 (died 1890).

Roughly translated “I was just scratching my ear!”

Maybe that’s in the made for TV version. Look up the real story. It will do you good.

In life, we all have failures. What determines our eventual success is how we view those failures and what we choose to do about them.

When those inevitable failures come it’s not time to give up. It’s time to figure out what went wrong the last time, put on our big boy pants and try again.

I’m no artist like Van Gogh. But I do a fair amount of design and have a few hundred products for sale on CafePress and Zazzle. True story: I had my biggest success with “Sarah Palin: Read My Lipstick.” But I’m also having a good deal of success with my “Stations of the Cross” posters. It’s both exciting and humbling.

But, as you know if you’re a long time reader…and let’s not have that conversation again…I’m also (primarily) a writer, and an actor.

Even the most successful of writers have a file of rejection slips. In my case I have emails saying “thanks, but no thanks.” That’s no reason to stop.

And, as an actor, there are far more auditions than there are offers.

Let’s not talk about the fact that I might have more success in one area or the other if I only focusd on one thing.

If you’re a long time reader (ahem), then you know that this year I’ve been focusing on writing and health. I’ve not really been actively pursuing art and theatre activities. I didn’t set them aside completely, but they’re not my main focus.

What’s that sappy internet saying that keeps showing up on Facebook…something about letting something go and if you’re supposed to have it then it will come back to you?

I don’t think Van Gogh’s ear came back.

But that’s another story.

Whatever your goal is, your dream, your fantasy (keep it clean), your plan, it’s very rare that everything will go right all along the way. There will be failures. There will be setbacks.

That’s not defeatism. That’s reality.

He who has ears, let him hear.

Too soon?

 

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