Once, in early days, someone said of me, “He’s an artist,” and I demurred. Why? I was embarrassed. I knew I wasn’t a very good artist, so I shunned the title. But in shunning the title, I may have been hampering my own progress toward becoming what I secretly thought would be great.<\/p>\n
This inhibition is one of the\u00a0things that holds us back. Because we’re not already “it,” we hesitate to identify with the new interest and we can stop there.<\/p>\n
Face it, you have a number of gifts and multiple interests; what’s the harm in owning one more?<\/p>\n
Okay, there is a certain level society will expect of us. A person can’t go around saying he’s a medical doctor just because he may have an interest in health. And you can’t boast of being a reader when the extent of your reading is The TV Guide<\/em>.<\/p>\n Then again, if you can drive, you’re a driver; if you’re teaching, you’re a teacher; if you work, you’re a worker.<\/p>\n It’s the verb that defines the noun.<\/p>\n Emily Dickinson never published a poem, Vincent Van Gogh never sold a painting. Was Emily a poet? Was Vincent a painter?<\/p>\n Okay, one of Van Gogh’s pieces sold before his death, and of Emily’s 1800 poems, 11 were published in her lifetime. But the point’s the same, each was doing their craft and had well earned their titles whether or not anybody else knew it at the time.<\/p>\n So, forget the false humility. Whatever you’re doing, that’s what you are. And the more you own up to it, the more you’ll do it.<\/p>\n If not, the loss is yours . . . and the rest of ours.<\/p>\n So, fill in the blank, “I am a ____________.”<\/p>\n Now, back to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Don’t by shy. You’re attempting a new thing, pursuing a new interest. Don’t let the title hold you back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7942"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10679,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7942\/revisions\/10679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}