“I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in
me and I didn't have the heart to let him down.”
― Abraham Lincoln
The Railroad Junction - Circa 1880
[My apology first that this post is longer than usual or
than intended but it’s a true story and one I hope worth reading].
How are you measuring
your success as an artist, a writer…a person? I suppose I’m like everyone else
when they first started out with their artistic endeavors. I thought I had to
measure my success in terms of sales – how many people bought my first book of
poetry, Songs of the Heart’s Longing
or my second,
Ecclesiastes for Sixty: Seasons in Solitude
The answer is – not many – and most of those sales went to
friends, family and fellow poets. And when I turned toward the art world, I
thought I should measure the value of my art by the number of prints or
canvases I sold. Again, the truth was…I didn’t sell many, particularly in the
learning curve years. But then, as I said, in an earlier post, I realized that
I was using entirely the wrong measure for all of it. Sure it would have been
nice to be a best-selling author – though let’s face it, that rarely happens to
poets unless you're Maya Angelou! And it would be incredibly lovely to sell enough prints to tuck a little
nest egg away so I could afford to do a little more with my “golden years.”
Luckily for me, I remembered the greatest lesson about
success I’ve ever heard…and it was a lesson taught to me by the brightest, most
intelligent student I ever had the privilege to teach. Bear with me…I’ll try to
keep this short and still make the point. This student was a young man of East
Indian heritage, the child of professional parents, an AP and honor student all
through school. His older brother had been senior class valedictorian and
later, his sister would be too. But neither of them were as brilliant as he
was. His junior year, he scored a perfect 1600 on his SATs (before the change
to 2400). He entered and won the International Science Fair, creating an
entirely new math which he was invited to present to the faculty of a
prestigious Texas university (and for which he got a standing ovation from men
and women absolutely in awe of his abilities). This young man entered my senior
advanced sociology class and said on the first day, “I’ve been waiting four years to take
your class Mrs. Schneider and have a chance to really learn something new and
exciting outside my usual fields of study.”
Well, I must say, I was a tad intimidated
and wasn’t sure I could live up to that challenge! But on the very first class
day, after telling students that if there was a word I used that they didn’t
understand to raise their hands and ask (there’s a lot of jargon in any field
of study) wouldn’t you know, this brilliant young man was the first to do that,
announcing that he’d never heard a word I used in my discussion and would I mind
defining or explaining it. Because he was humble enough to do that, he set the
tone for the entire year for the entire class – and the energy, inquisitiveness
and accomplishments of that senior class never saw an equal in my years at that
school. Naturally, inevitably, this marvelous young man was his class
valedictorian and as senior sponsor, it was my job to oversee his valedictory
address to ensure that it would be suitable for the occasion. Truthfully, I
didn’t really proof it in advance…he gave me a rough outline of what he wanted
to talk about and I said, “Go for it…it sounds perfect.” And it was. His topic,
“What Is Success?”
Here
was a young man who at 18 had already achieved more “worldly” success than men
and women twice his age (I forgot to mention that he was a championship tennis
player too!). But he stood before his classmates – all of widely varied abilities,
some who had barely made it to graduation, some for whom athletics was far more
important than academics, some who were arrogant about their status and some
who were terribly unsure of themselves and afraid of the future – and he spoke
to them of various definitions of success. He called them by name and said John
(not his real name) is a great success as a friend…loyal to a fault,
dependable, trustworthy. And Susan makes the most beautiful crocheted afghans something no one else in the class can do.
Mary lights up any day with her smile and a joke to lift your spirits. Kevin
can throw a baseball 90 miles an hour and he worked 50 hours a week all year to
pay his tuition here. He singled out the kids who had struggled and found some
quality or talent they possessed that few knew about and he held it up as a
measure. “Success,” he said, “isn’t about accolades or awards, it isn’t about
making the highest grades or the most money. Success is about being the best
YOU you can be and in that sense every single one of my classmates is
undeniably successful.” I cried – right
there on the stage – and so did every one of his classmates.
I
realized when I recalled that moment, that I was incredibly successful too. Not
because I sold four or five art prints a day but just because I had done my
best on every single work I posted. Just because I worked and reworked a poem
until it expressed exactly what I wanted it to say, even if no one else got it.
And I want to share that success with each of you and tell you that you, too,
are successful in a thousand ways you haven’t even thought of. I don’t know
which of my art friends sell a lot of art work and which don’t – occasionally I
become aware that someone whose work I admire has sold a number of pieces in a
row, but I’m sure there are dozens of people out there who never announce their
sales or never have any. Once in a while, I hear a fellow artist worry about
why their work isn’t selling and I often remind myself – and them – to look for
another measure of success and be proud of sharing their work, of creating from
their hearts and proud that they brought some joy or insight or epiphany to
even one person today.
In
worldly terms, success is ephemeral – like fame – but in terms of one’s own
satisfaction with what one has accomplished, success is lasting and can’t be
bought or sold. Like the little engine who kept saying, “I think I can, I think
I can…” we just keep on trying and working together to make things happen. In
my book, Darren Fisher’s success is in his willingness to share HOW he creates
such beauty and where to find the resources to enhance anyone’s artistic
efforts. I have no idea whether Darren sells much or little and it doesn’t
matter to me at all (it might matter to him!). Or why not consider a definition
of success that includes how generous an artist – like Jane Small – is in
supporting and encouraging others with comments that reach right into the heart
of an artist’s work and speaks to the nuanced beauty she has found there. I
sincerely hope these two remarkable talents ARE selling a ton of work but for
myself – I measure their success by a different ruler.
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