When to take a (frustrating) breath

Sometimes, life happens all st once. For example, I just started some really exciting Assistant Producer work with Trigger. Between that and the work I do, I'm doing full time hours for a few weeks.

This is great, and exciting, and also comes right after I did two interviews for a couple of personal video projects I'm working on. They're damn cool projects too. One's about peeling back the mystery of how and why arts projects happen, and the other's about bring a bit of joy into people's days. They're great, if I do say do myself. I'd been feeling creatively starved and so decided to go for it.

They're also very involved, and take a lot of work to make. So I can't do them right now.

This was disappointing. I got really amped up for these projects where I'd learn new skills and talk to interesting people and laugh and gain knowledge.

At the same time, I need to look after my health. It's so easy to get swept up in creating things, in art, and the idea that it's ok or even necessary to suffer for your art. That if you're not working yourself to the bone every hour of every day, you're not doing your job. You're not a real artist.

The other side of that coin is that you can slow things down even more if you don’t pace yourself. If you do ten projects at once and burn out before any are completed, you could take months or even weeks to recover. All that personal sacrifice for the sake of work can land you in a situation where you can’t even complete the projects.

So.

Breathe.

Slow down.

And know your limits.

There’ll be time for those video projects. Until then, I’ll focus on the really exciting work I’m doing on other things.

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