Valuing something is not the same as liking it

Thoughts on releasing the pressure to like your own work

Valuing something is not the same as liking it.

To value something is to say: this deserves to exist, whether it’s well received or not, whether it’s good or not.

And it’s easy to think that whatever you have to offer is not good.

It’s easy to immitate something else, something that isn’t you, because you’ve seen it work before. Because you know other people will like it.

The harder thing is figuring out what you bring to the table and deciding to value that.

It is a decision, not a feeling.

And it’s one of the hardest decisions to make because you know it will hurt more to be rejected for who you really are than embraced for the character you play.

To show up as yourself is to be plainly and simply naked. No amor, no weapon.

So when the sword of that judgment comes, it is guaranteed to sink in. The love will, too. But your lizard brain doesn’t care about that.

So you stay in character, hunched over your crystal ball, relieved that all its predictions encourage you to remain the same.

But at a certain point, the color starts draining out of everything. Sensations lose their texture, and life starts to feel hopelessly mundane.

This is your soul atrophying from lack of use. Wasting and weakening like a muscle never put to work.

This is when you realize that the cost of your soul is too high a price, so you change.

You take the leap.

And like magic, a net appears.

Then suddenly you are at once the leaping person

and the net

and the air surrounding them.

Your drowsy soul is flexing now, and you see that it is safe for you to create things

that no one has to like them,

not even you.