Failure, amarite?

I would say without doubt that the one thing that occupies most of my mind is “am I on track?” Everything I do, every project, every story, hell, this blog post “am I on track? Should I be doing this? Is this good?”

I’m about half way through with my life (I’m on the Hemingway diet) and it’s occurred to me recently that there really is two ways people operate; creating a persona for others, and being the person you are.

I’m not sure what is more “effective”. On one hand by creating your persona you get to craft/curate who you want to be, and more specifically what others take you to be, even if that’s not necessarily who you actually are. This can definitely get you where you want to go, and give you the life you want to have at the cost of being a phony. The other way is just more honest; you are true to yourself, which always feels good, unless others think you’re a piece of garbage, and then you got to deal with that.

Maybe it’s a delicate combination of both that gets you through life, but one thing is for sure; it is wholly human to judge yourself against others. Really that’s all we got.

That’s why this little video by the very genius Royal Ocean Film Society was so soothing. Thank you for taking the need for validation away for even just a minute, it feels good to breathe again. The bottom line is that anyone who is successful wasn’t born that way. It took a lot of garbage to get there. Unless you’re Scarlet Johansson. I mean she’s perfect.