The War of Art

A friend of mine sent an email yesterday after he had a read a book over the weekend that had profoundly affected him. I haven’t read it, but plan to take a look at it. I thought I would take a few of his thoughts and share them with you.

First of all the book is called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. My friend who read the book is Ed Chinn, who I’ve known for about 10 years now, and is a really cool guy, deep thinker, and author himself. So my thoughts are based off of Ed’s thoughts of Pressfield’s thoughts – confused yet?

So the premise of what Ed wrote was that no matter what we actually do for a living, we are called to do something. Sometimes we are in fact doing that calling professionally, but many times we are not. That calling is an art. Maybe a literal art (photography, writing, painting, design, etc) or maybe art in a manner of speaking (administration could be  your calling, and it is an art in that sense).

Here’s the key though – don’t miss it. The calling/art that we have inside of us is constantly being fought by resistance to actually doing the art. The resistance most times comes in fear and self-doubt. Wow, is that huge. Seriously, how many times have you thought to yourself, “I would love to (and then fill in the blank).” But then what is the usual very next response –  “No, it would never work because I don’t know enough” or “No, I need to make more money” or “No, (you fill in the blank)” Then we go back to the couch and turn on the TV. End of dream for the day.

That leads to the second point, and one of the reasons that I posted the story about the Elisa Strauss yesterday – the cake lady. The biggest resistance to doing art is not taking the step to doing it professionally. In other words, when we try to do our art/calling on the side we will have more resistance, more reason to not do it. When we become a pro, we help to kill the resistance that comes against doing our art (though as most of us know – not entirely by any means). I love Elisa’s story and the story that so many of you have. The story is “I found something that I loved to do. I figured out a way that I can make money, and I made the jump.”

But I know that there are people who are probably reading this who haven’t made the jump and are pretty scared to make the jump. I know, I’ve made that jump – from what is basically one life to another and not much safety net underneath. And of course the more responsibility we have, the harder that jump is. But when you think about it, the alternative is looking back at your life in 20, 30, 50 years and saying “What if?”

Over the course of the last couple of years, I have developed motto’s in my life. If you’ve read my blog much for the last 18 months or so, you’ll know that one thing that was important to me was “Don’t Give Up” But I feel like I’ve moved on to a new season of my life – 2010 has brought a new perspective about life to me. I think my new motto for the next year or so very well may be “Freedom”. Freedom to do what you are called to do. Freedom to live the life you want to live. Freedom comes from embracing your calling/art and doing what it takes to do it. Freedom means not being bound. Freedom means not being tied to your past or shackled by your fears or doubts. For me, that is an invigorating realization.

So let me wrap up my thoughts here. Maybe you are facing resistance of some sort in your life/art/calling. First of all, be encouraged because if you weren’t doing something, you probably wouldn’t be facing resistance. Second, if you haven’t made the “professional” jump, start making plans to jump. Get in or get out. Third, no matter what you do, be free. Free to do what you love to do.

Oh, and DON’T GIVE UP!