It’s one of the things I told myself when I first started painting.<\/p>\n
There were a number of things: paint every day, find a place to do it, learn from the library, copy the masters, don’t make paintings\u2014just paint, have fun, and this one: Don’t get depressed.<\/p>\n
Why would I tell myself that? Because I know how I am. I’m quality oriented; I want to get good, and I want to get good fast. Just like you.<\/p>\n
The thing is, growth is incremental; we hardly see it. In our mind it can seem like we’ll never get there. And that’s not an encouraging thought.<\/p>\n
Discouragement, nurtured, leads to depression, and depression leads to quitting. Once we quit, that kills all chances of ever getting good.<\/p>\n
So: Don’t get depressed.<\/p>\n
Sounds simplistic, I know. And I’m not talking to those carrying the burden of chemical imbalance or demons, imaginary or real. Though, who knows? As I’ve said, we live in our minds.<\/p>\n
I just know in my case, I can usually see when the early signs of discouragement and depression are setting in, and when I do, at least I can remind myself that I told myself, \u201cDon’t get depressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because I have, and I have. (Gotten depressed. Reminded myself.)<\/p>\n
Something about depression I’ve recognized is that it’s all perspective. It’s always \u201cme\u201d centered. There is remedy for that, if we’ll crawl out of our dark hole and see it.<\/p>\n
Another thing: it has nothing to do with succeeding. In fact, succeeding can bring it on more. I just read of a young man, a brilliant creative writer, in his mid-20’s already at the top of his game, but dealing with long depression finally jumped to his death. I sympathize, with him, who he left behind, but I take a lesson: That’s the ultimate non-success.<\/p>\n
Most of us won’t go that far, or suffer that deeply. But even the lesser levels, if left to fester, will cause us to quit. And that’s a suicide, a letting die of something that’s a part of you. Something that was \u00a0living, and should be growing . . . for your sake, and as contribution to the rest of us.<\/p>\n
So, here’s my advice, given first to myself:\u00a0Don’t get depressed. And when you do, remember that you told yourself not to. Even that will\u00a0help you come out of it earlier.<\/p>\n
Now, put on a smile and get back to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sounds simple, but it matters. Consider it a New Year’s resolution . . . for the rest of your life. <\/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\/8251"}],"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=8251"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10684,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251\/revisions\/10684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}