I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and our relationship to it. It seems we’ve come to think of it as a bad thing, but I’m not sure that’s the case at all.
Someone mentioned to me the other day when we were chatting about a project that was important to them that they “weren’t putting any pressure on themselves” and that sentence stopped me in my tracks.
I understood what they meant- they didn’t want this thing that they loved to become another whip cracking monstrosity in their day- but in the same breath, not putting any pressure on yourself is the ultimate wild card, and potentially, a recipe for not getting things done.
When I think about drawing and writing and midwifing things into the being that sit outside what the world around me expects or asks, I do put a considerable amount of pressure on myself to make them real.
That pressure is the force behind my decision making; the things I say yes or no to that might potentially gobble up the time I could otherwise be spending on what it is I want to make.
That pressure communicates to me its value; that this is something important to me, something that the future me really wants to get done.
That pressure is what helps me sit through the gnarly parts where things feel unclear and unformed and my brain is little more than creative spaghetti.
Pressure is never a conversation of all or nothing. And it’s always present regardless; it’s behind whatever it is we deem to be important. But not as something to be avoided. As something to be embraced.
I wonder if not putting pressure on yourself to put energy into something that you love is just fear in a disguise. Not always, but sometimes. It’s always good to question.