If this is what it feels like to give my best, why would I continue?

November 25, 2016 1:43 PM

You’ve seen the trope in popular culture a thousand times.

A character says or does something intended to elicit and enthusiastic response from the audience, but instead of getting the reaction he expects, the guy hears nothing but the sound of crickets chirping.

The audience is stunned into silence. They’ve missed the joke entirely.

Hence the expression, hearing crickets.

Of course, stage performers and television actors don’t have a monopoly on this moment. It’s the universal human experience of not feeling heard.

And so, when you’re an earnest, intelligent, creative individual who cares and tries and believes and hustles and does all the right things and ships great work every day, but still doesn’t seem to move the needle, it’s deeply frustrating.

It makes you want to throw your hands up in the air in a state of futility and despair, groaning to yourself, if this is what it feels like to give my best, why would I continue?

It’s the purchase price of making art for a living.

Accept the precariousness and unrelenting anxiety and occasional dispiritedness as occupational hazards.

Trust that the world isn’t moving on without you and they’re not going to forget about you.

Remember that the crickets are actually chirping all the time, but you can only hear them when it’s quiet.

It’s simply a matter of timing.

Again, that song lyric pops back into my head:

Don’t chime the armageddon bell, give the law a chance to work.

Even if you have to invent a hundred ways to delude yourself. Because maybe it’s not a hopeless endeavor. Maybe it’s the moment right before success.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How patient can you afford to be?
LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

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