bendelaney:

Every creative person really needs to watch this video by Zack Arias. It’s directed at photographers, but it applies to everyone. I just watched it three times in a row. Great great stuff. (Don’t get dissuaded by the first minute or so… it starts out cheeky, but gets then gets really serious.)

I think I’m really beginning to fully realise - from my own experience thus far and from talking to others older than me - that this feeling of ‘not knowing what I want to do’ could easily become a theme of my entire life - so I better get used to it and move forward, regardless of that (potentially self-sabotaging sub-conscious) thought that makes me waste time almost waiting for ‘the other foot to drop’ and for some magic door to a magnificent kingdom to reveal itself and for everything to suddently become clear and straight forward and easy.

The river of life is flowing, but I’ve still got a few snags I need to realise I put there and move on despite my thoughts that create them in the first instance; go with the flow.

But at the same time - with that analogy - I picture calmly floating down a river, at peace and relaxed, which I think precludes the sometimes(?) necessary struggle.

I don’t know; I’ll get back to you on that. I’ve heard that once you let go and go with the flow of life, it becomes easier. But I also experience that struggling for excellence, pushing further than you thought necessary, is what achieves greatness. So do these two modes of living seem contradictory?

How about this. Going with the flow is about accepting what life brings you, even if it’s not what you expect - and trusting that it is part of what you need to get where you want to go. The struggle is the sweat and tears expelled when working on projects - when you’re head goes down - in between accepting gifts from nature/God/your inner voice. Like, the two run paralellel; something ‘external’, for instance, might present itself during the course of a project and if you see it for what it can be, it might provide a little shortcut to the other side more rich and rewarding path.

Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs

Letting go and paying attention is something that once you start to be able to do it, it starts to get exciting…

I would like to know what would happen with my life if I only did things I loved and was passionate about… If I’d end up thriving more - like I’ve read I would. :D

I think the path leading to finding how to listen to that inner voice, trusting it and being open to hearing it in the first instance - moving from that disconnect to connectedness - is where unhappiness and pain initially stem from. That lost feeling is then slowly dissolved into the sometimes bewildering dichotomy of life that now seems all the more clearer.

Once it is understood why everything happens the way it does, it becomes easier to accept and work with, and be happy to be and love everything about every thing and every one.

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