My very good friend Sunflower Jones is an artist. Her art is writing and the practice of yoga. That is what she was put on this Earth to do. I am an artist as well. I was put on this Earth to constantly create new things, to counsel and mentor others, and to influence people through language and ideas. I’m a writer, a teacher, a coach. Sunflower recently tipped me on to a wonderful book The War of Art. In it, the author takes the reader through a journey of discovering all the different ways the artist’s enemy, named Resistance, keeps us from doing what we were put on this Earth to do.

By artist, he does not mean you have to be a writer or a painter. Your art may take the form of fitness. Instead of a paintbrush, you may wield a butcher knife as a culinary artist. Maybe you were put on this Earth to show people how to be beautiful inside and out.

I Resisted becoming a writer for ten years. It started in 7^th grade when I switched schools. I went from being the best writer I knew at school to being an unremarkable writer among my new peers at a Magnet school. Rather than proudly claiming my territory as a writer, I placed myself in a hierarchy, and dissatisfied with my position, opted out of the race for a long time. I’m back—and nothing can stop me from fulfilling my destiny of having my voice heard. My territory is the blank page, the unearthed idea, and the student seeking guidance—whether the student lives inside of me or takes on the form of a reader or coachee. I’ll do these things as long as I live.

You know that you are Resisting your artistic destiny if:

• You have a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction in your life that you keep burying. Are you unhappy in a mediocre romantic relationship? Do you find it hard to sleep sometimes because you have so many ideas floating around in your brain—and you don’t write them down or act on them? Do you over-eat/over-sex/over-spend/drink too much/dramatize your life? You are Resisting your artistic destiny.
• You feel like a different person was dreaming up your life when you were a kid. Very young children are magical because they have not been socialized into having mediocre expectations for their lives. They dream big, because they don’t know or care about mortgages or gender roles or statistics. Now you have bills, responsibilities, and “realistic” expectations for your life. Really—you are using these things to Resist your artistic destiny.
• You keep getting sick, don’t have enough energy, or are experiencing depression that nothing seems to work on. There are countless examples of people finally living out their dreams once they live through a near-death experience or are given a diagnosis that they have a very short time left to live. Resisting your destiny will make you sick. Just like doing your art feeds and sustains you, resisting that art can and will hurt you.

My Resistance culminated the summer before my senior year of college. Gripped with depression that plagued me like a low-grade fever, I felt like nothing in my life mattered anymore. I had been granted thousands of dollars to write over the summer, but I refused. I had been given a huge scholarship to study writing abroad the year after graduation, and I didn’t care. I fled the bleak, endless days of idleness I was creating for myself in Los Angeles, came home and lay in my parent’s bed unable to get up even to say hello to their guests. I briefly went to counseling and I felt a lot better. Over the next two years, I began to write more—but I still had yet to claim it.  I didn’t completely emerge from the cave of Resistance I had buried myself in until my first year of business school where nobody admits to wanting to be a writer. Writers starve. Writers are lonely. Writers just write—they don’t do. Writers don’t change the world. These are the things that are implicitly taught in Business School with the relentless focus on leadership, change management, and the pursuit of profit. And somehow, being in a place where seemingly absolutely nobody cared that I was running from being a writer, was exactly what I needed to finally admit that I did.

What are you Resisting?

Related posts:

1. Love vs. Fear

Tagged as: books, happiness, purpose, Resistance