Hey hey, SuperForest!
I’d say that for about the past several months, I’ve seen the above image at least 180 times without ever knowing who the artist was or the story behind it. Which I guess kind of makes sense considering the message is all about the boldness of those words. The fearlessness behind it. The bravery. For me, that was good enough.
A couple days ago, the image resurfaced on Good in an article featuring the work of five artists depicting “What it means to work today” and when I saw the image this time, I had found not only the name of the artist, but an essay he wrote to go with it! It’s everything you’d expect. The essay is absolute chaos and takes an image I’d already thought had done its job in communicating its message and just adds a whole new level to its madness. Here is an excerpt.
Let’s make better mistakes tomorrow. Let’s scratch our heads and give up and wake up and try it again. Let’s fail at digging the well the first three times to get it right the fourth. Let’s build faster horses, and then strap rocket ships onto them. Let’s start a company, let’s watch it fail, and then let’s start another one.
Let’s be the boss. Let’s take the boss down. Let’s order too much of something just to see where our limits are. Let’s take a chance precisely because it might fail…
(continue reading) – warning: the rest of the essay does contain foul language.
The first time I read it, my initial thoughts were “Whoah whoah, calm down, buddy!” but after giving it a few more reads and reflecting upon the “blasphemous” ideas on what it means to be a “successful” worker, I realized that to some degree, this guy is totally right. Failure tends to be one of our biggest fears. Even though we might not communicate it, I’m sure we’ve all felt it. This fear has a way of keeping us boxed in and making us feel and act safe. When eradicated, sure, it might feel like chaos, but it must also be liberating. Because when mistakes no longer become “mistakes”, there is no such thing as failure. There is only growth. There is only progress.
After all, how many times did Edison try to make an incandescent light bulb?
Wishing you the best, most fulfilling, life-improving mistakes,
C
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