A rewarding struggle

The hardest thing I did yesterday was a twenty-minute drawing.

Every mark on the page hurt. I felt like crying. Literally.

But I kept with it. I had committed to twenty minutes of drawing, and I was going to do it.

It was not joy. It was not leisure. It was not the beauty of creativity flowing through me — or at least it didn’t feel that way.

It was struggle. It was resistance. It was the frustration of, “This is not working the way I want it to.” It was self-doubt and self-loathing.

But I continued.

And I made something.

And I’m better for it.

And the part about me being better has very little to do with how the drawing looks.

* * *

The creative thing you resist with such fortitude can be a rewarding struggle for you, too … but you cannot turn away when the going gets tough. You must bear it and see it through.