#i think this is a good enough enrichment for them though-- maybe-- possibly-- painfully

[aria0fgold]

Trapped in a time loop with the bestie, oh whatever will they do now? (Die countless of times).

[annoyinglysweatyanchor-blog]

True Passion

I found out that I wanted to write and create films and stories that inspire people to enrich the ways we interact with each other when I told myself I wanted to be an animator. I was taking art courses, going to art conventions, meeting mentors who all spoke about the same thing: 1,000 hours. How devoting 1,000 hours into something to get well at it. Forming a habit and practicing it every day though it pains you. The idea of trying your best over and over again, making mistakes to learn from them was an idea I was obsessed with. Then I told myself over and over again, “If I want to be an animator and know how to draw I have to put in my 1,000 hours and then I will stop hating it. Then I will actually be able to love my art and love what I created.” I told myself this over and over every time I had no motivation whatsoever to do it. I knew in my heart something was off, but wasn’t exactly willing to accept it. I kept comparing myself with the knowledge I got from my mentors about how hard it is sometimes and to push through, but no matter how steadfast I was at taking their advice and how I even began to like drawing I kept searching for more to learn, more mentors to learn from. More things to know about art and I didn’t even know what I was searching for at the time. Looking back I feel like I was looking for a reason to stay or maybe some sort of permission to follow my heart. It wasn’t until I was on a train heading home with a mentor of mine a year into my animation pursuit that my goal and purpose with what I wanted to devote my life to changed forever.

 I had told my mentor about why I wanted to be an animator and how I wanted to created animated films that also educate people on being their best selves and all of this talk about my passions and after it was all said and done he uttered but one sentence to me. All it took was one sentence. One tiny little sentence in the vast multitude of millions of sentences I have ever heard uttered in my entire life that changed the course of my life drastically. He had this confused look on his face that I will never forget and all he said was, “It doesn’t sound to me like you want to be an animator. It just sounds like you want to be the boss of animators”. This sentence in it's own regard has a pretty predictable takeaway, but to me at that moment so many new doors were open to me. Of course, I do! Of course, I want to be the boss of animators. All I wanted was for my vision to be animated. That’s it. So why did I think that I had to become an animator to do so? Why couldn’t I just focus on my vision instead of putting myself through grueling hours of painfully manipulating characters of someone else’s vision as my life career. Why spend grueling hours of my life doing ANYTHING that I did not want to do? This is where my life changed. When I asked that question I realized that I was using animation as a safety net. I was trapped in the idea that I had to be this perfect person who could acquire a skill that if my vision did not work out, at least I had some valuable asset that could make me money. I had chosen this major because it was ‘kinda’ what I wanted to do and it looked good to the people I told and I felt like I needed to make a decision quick and it made good money when I looked it up on PayScale so why not? Why not, because I was conditioned to limit myself before I had even began. I was conditioned to believe that I had no talents that would make my vision even possible, so I was told that I needed to get some and then make a lot of money off of them for some reason. To me this just meant that I would have to acquire as many talents as possible and put myself through hell because if I had a vision I and I alone was going to be the sole force making it a reality and that I couldn’t trust anyone.

 This is such backwards thinking, but this is very similar to the experience that I know many students face as well. Being taught that they have to put on this facade that they are genuinely interested in the field they are studying, secretly hating it, devoting 4-10 YEARS of their lives all in an effort to make money because they feel like their happiness is external. They were taught that their dreams and ideas weren’t good enough and that if they ever pursued them that they would live “years of hardship and pain” because what we truly desire doesn’t make money. I’m not an expert on anything yet, but there is one thing I have learned from my many years of being a student of life and it's that what we are taught when it comes to our true happiness is the complete opposite of what is true. It is scary to believe in ourselves and listen to what we truly want because that leaves us vulnerable to criticism or being disliked and outcasted, but in my personal experience being brave and listening to yourself anyway despite how scared you are, that is when life just seems to open up for you. It was at this realization that I changed my major to communications. I promised myself that I would have a platform to teach, inspire, and to enrich people who were taught like me, not to love or trust themselves. To instill in them how to be leaders of their own lives and enrich the ways in which they see themselves, their world, and how they treat each other in them. This is what I am truly passionate about.