Are you brave?

It takes courage to create, to engage the creative genius. One must overcome the demons of perfectionism, procrastination, and often, years of obscurity. The critics, the naysayers, the haters, they arrive in time to dampen desire.

Every work of towering imagination is a culmination of years of toil. Even when one appears to be living out an ordinary existence, work is being done to create a masterpiece. It may seem sudden, but success is not a momentary accomplishment. A lifetime of choices, effort, mistakes, and failures comes together in a triumph that may outlive its maker.

Are you brave?

Do you have what it takes to get up when the silence is deafening and try again? Can you make the sketch, layer the oils, when your heart is broken? Will you write when all the world has failed to appreciate your words? Can you pull the camera out of the bag and take the shot when all you have are neglected prints? Can you put new ingredients together once more after so often getting an unpalatable taste? Will you sing your song when you are afraid no one will applaud? Could you play your instrument when every other time you missed a crucial note?

Will you keep trying when your hope has fled, and you feel you are failing all alone?

You must! You must have the hope, will, desire, courage to keep making an effort when the effort is all you have; when defeat is sour on your tongue, and the fading light is dying. Only then, only when you have seen the death of all you believe you might do and you keep creating, just when you defeat the rejection, conquer the fear, and do it because you must, because creating is your life, only then will it happen. You will know yourself tenacious enough to capture the prize and build your dream.

Believe, love, be a blessing in the world because this broken world needs the blessing! Celebrate your gifts, your talents, your abilities, and accomplishments, even if you must celebrate alone. You are a magnificent human being capable of greatness. Should you be ignored, do not worry, your time will come. The creativity that resides within you will find a way of expression in the world that gives you meaning and aids others in their journeys.

Never, don’t you ever, give up!

© Jo Ann Joyce Anita Jordan