chris1989 wrote:
I seem to struggle to try to appreciate and celebrate other people's successes which may be are down to having had to work hard for it and that maybe the reason they are successful already for example at the age of 23, is because they may have gone into the world of work from the moment they left school at 16 or 17 and that's why they are where they are now as a business-man or woman. But still leaves me feeling bad because I didn't go straight into work when I finally left sixth form at 18 and went straight to college to do two years of an art and design course. Then after that I did voluntary not paid work and then left to go to university. I'm seem to feel bad that I wasn't in that mindset of getting a job from the moment I was leaving sixth form because now I am in a working routine of getting up, going to work, working and then coming home again, I feel appreciate it more and realise that it feels good to be working and its leaving me thinking I should have got into years before.
It feels as though its bad and unacceptable to not to be working until the age of 26 when I got my first paid job. The thing is I have Asperger’s Syndrome and since leaving university I feel as though I was in a state of limbo as of what to do next and I feel bad for the fact that I didn’t already achieve success like some other people, even though I had no clear idea at the time. I know someone aged 23 who is a school teacher and I also have a cousin who became a lawyer at aged 21 and she worked for New Look before she did. I also have a long-term school friend who is 31 and on the severe end of the spectrum and has never been in any paid work and I don't know if he will because he is not as social as I am. I’m not sure whether it is the age I’m jealous even I have no interest in the jobs they are doing. I’ve been trying to write a book but obviously I’ve taken longer to do it and do a lot of research and also my ideas sometimes keep changing so it can be frustrating at times.
It’s not just working hard. It’s about whether what your work is happens to be valuable to anyone besides you.
For me, it’s more about being a champion in things I love doing. I’m a musician. I’m a clarinetist, a pianist, a composer, and conductor. I also teach. So…am I rich? Do I command a high level of respect? Meh…it depends. I have some difficult students, parents who are unsupportive, and an environment that doesn’t really encourage musical study. But my youngest students are enthusiastic and might transform music programs at this school. So who knows what might happen? THAT is my whole point…I’m somewhat a hostage of other folks’ values, and I don’t intend to stay that way any longer than necessary. But I also have a steady piano gig and people love me there. I’m well paid, all things considered. I’m also involved in volunteer work with community musicians. While I don’t get paid for that, it does bring a lot of recognition and respect within the community. It gives me opportunities with people I share values with. When that happens, musicians stop being simply musicians and become community leaders. When you perform on that level, you’re generally met with monetary success—reason being that people will pay money for things they want more than anything else. If your work is worth holding onto, people will pay big money to keep you around.
The hard work part begins when you are building your skills. You have to focus on yourself and strengthen your abilities. You’ll go home exhausted every day. Either you will respond to your exhaustion with pride in your work or you will face burnout.
Eventually, you’ll learn how to work with other people to accomplish your work goals. You all have the same values, so you share the workload. You accomplish more when you work together, and by sharing the burden you won’t burn out so easily.
And that builds EXPERIENCE. If you have similar experience to mine, you learn more about what NOT to do. You fail often. But you also fail FAST, no dragging things out. And those experiences will teach you so much more than people who just seem to win all the time. And I have no ill feelings against constant winners—I aspire to be one of them. But the more you examine winners, you’ll begin to notice two strands of them: Those who have natural talent or are born into privilege (they stand on the shoulders of their predecessors, not in their shadows), or they are greedy and manipulative. They run things extremely well for a short time, building short term successes on the last guy who held their position, only to add nothing and leave a mess for the next guy to clean up. When that happens, it’s always the new guy who gets blamed for a business falling apart or declining, but I’ve found myself dealing with this on more occasions than I want to admit to. But here I am…and when you find yourself in that place, you have to decide it staying is worth it or if you should cut your losses. That’s one of those experience things…you won’t know that until you’ve been there. All you can do is stay hopeful and keep moving.
With experience, you get ideas. Ideas are a fun place to live because you can dream and experiment. You know what works and what doesn’t. You can just play and have fun and not worry about living up to someone else’s expectations—which you shouldn’t ever even worry about, anyway. Then you go to your people you work with and try these ideas out. You have nothing to fear. Some risks pan out, many don’t, and it doesn’t matter. The most wonderful thing about reaching this stage is that you have to depend on other people to realize these dreams, and you have people who WANT to stand behind you and bring ideas to life. You’ll notice you don’t PHYSICALLY work as hard as you used to. Then you start taking time to explore interests outside your work. Maybe you always wanted to run a marathon. Maybe you wanted to travel the world. Maybe it’s time to buy that sports car you always wanted, or a motorcycle. Hey, I looked it up—a trip to Ibiza for a week for two people is within my grasp now. I couldn’t always say that. I’m not wealthy—we’ve lived a very frugal and austere life, we’re in the habit of doing the same kinds of things rich people do, and we can allow ourselves nice things sometimes. My kids are big Kraftwerk fans, so I’m treating the family to a concert this summer. I’m also taking a school group along with my family to Disney World over spring break. It will be a long time before we’ll have another good year like this one, sure, but I’m nevertheless keeping my expectations very, very high.
As far as the role of luck goes…no, not everyone is going to have that one special thing that changes the entire world, or that one next greatest idea, or that new hit song. The things you’re interested in may be things only you care about. And you know what? That’s perfectly ok! It could be you work two jobs to support a craft or hobby. There is nothing wrong with that because everything you do produces value that you trade for what you want. Even though you don’t do these things for others, others benefit. Think about it. You work min wage at the McDonald’s drive through window. You think all you do is take money and hand people a cheap meal. What you don’t see is the mother with 5 kids who just got off a long shift at the hospital who is about to cry because she never has enough time to spend with her children. In 5 minutes you spared her possibly an hour and a half that she’d have to cook and wash dishes after she’s ALREADY exhausted. And all you really wanted to do was try to earn a little extra money you could use to add something to your model train set. Without even thinking about it, you got your train AND a you changed the world, and all you did was put fries and chicken sandwiches in bag. Luck had nothing to do with it.
If you’re a musician and you want to write the next hit song—check your values. You may be using an unreasonable measure of your own success. Writing hit songs is about the whims of your audience, and they are fickle to say the least. When you write songs with the demands of your audience in mind, you are placing the values of others above your own. It’s different when you SHARE the same values as your audience, then writing hit songs are no trouble at all. You have a formula that is proven effective, and you rinse and repeat. But this is seldom the case for MOST songwriters. Instead, you should write what matters most to YOU and let your audience come to you. To find commercial success as a songwriter doesn’t have to mean selling out to an audience you don’t value. It just means you have to constantly write songs, even bad ones, and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. Behind every big hit song is a catalog of 300 or more songs you’ll never even get to hear. So, yes, there are hours of writing and producing, perhaps in your bedroom. But if you are capable of keeping this up over a long time, you are almost certain by the law of large numbers that you’ll make a ton of money off SOMETHING. Most songwriters lack the tenacity to make it happen, hence why it seems luck seems to favor some of us more than others. As for myself, I’ve committed my entire life to music and making a living at it one way or the other. I love time commitments, I love challenges, I love the whole process, I love collaborating. I even love the somewhat nomadic lifestyle we get called on to lead.
So yes, I’m holding out hope I’ll one day be a millionaire. But if it doesn’t happen, because there’s NOTHING I can’t do, am I really less successful without the fame and money? If luck never finds me, is my life truly less fulfilled? I have a beautiful wife, 4 kids, and wifey wants another one. I’m very, VERY rich and successful in all the ways that matter most.
05 Feb 2022, 3:09 pm
