Friday, August 24, 2018

Thought for the Day - The Difference Between Hope and Responsibility

We can take up any job with hope. Or with responsibility. Hope gets us nowhere. Seizing responsibility does.

Hope is what you do when you do not look at reality and then take action. Your head is in the sky while you are actually doing work that affects stuff near your feet and you hope that somehow it will all connect up. It might, it might not.

Responsibility is what makes us look at the job on hand, watch reality closely, find the pattern and work in a purposeful manner. You get an intuitive way of dealing with the job at hand when you look closely at anything. Skill, expertise, consistency are all results of that.

The artisan and the artist. But the greatest artists are at heart great artisans. They look closely at what they have to do, get the pattern intuitively, and proceed purposefully.

Why don't we look closely? Fear. Of taking responsibility for what we dish out with our best effort. But as an artist you have to take both - praise and criticism. Look closely. Then you will automatically move in the right direction.

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