Post hit

I don’t need to see the ocean to know that it’s right there. (Image by maallaaan)

Okay, this is weird, but I think it's a useful ability of mine: I know what it's like to be successful without actually having to go to the trouble.

I mean really successful, like number one record, eight-figure income, bestselling novel successful.

I haven't been there, but I know. I can experience it without experiencing it. I know that when you reach that level, you aren't any different inside than you were before, and if how you felt inside was inadequate and unworthy, you will still feel that way. You run the risk of continuing to reach for success because it's all you know to do, and along the way you might get pretty depressed.

I know, somehow, that when they call your name because you won the Oscar or whatever, it's not that different from how it felt when I won the biology award freshman year of high school and walked up to the lectern to get a piece of fake wood with a piece of fake brass, engraved with my name, glued to it. When they announced my name, I felt special, but it didn't change my life (although Mr. Watters called me "Miss Biology" for a couple of years afterward). Things like that are cool for a moment, but then you become habituated to them. Can the Academy really be that different from high school?

When I've had exciting things happen to me, I feel excited, and then I go back to feeling normal. If something truly huge happened, I am certain that I would have a period of adaptation, and then I would get used to a new normal.

Accepting this truth makes joy much easier. I know that I wouldn't be happier if I had ten times more money or social media followers. Even if I had a nicer house, car, or home furnishings, I would enjoy them for awhile, and then I'd take them for granted. That's just how it is to be human. Therefore, I might as well be happy now, with what I have.

I try to see the end in the beginning. I don't spend a lot of time hoping for a hit. The hit would feel great. But the next morning, post hit, you have to figure out how to do it again, and this time with more eyes watching. Eww, no thank you.

Who needs the pressure? Ironically, to get through it, artists have to try to mentally reverse their fame and fortune and go back to their salad days, putting themselves in their former position of hopeful idealism when they sit down to create (because nobody wants to listen to songs about how hard it is to be a rock star). Post hit, they want to go back to what it felt like to be pre-hit. Lucky you, then, if that’s where you are right now.

Whatever you're longing for probably won't transform your life the way you're hoping it will. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing or having, but there will always be another hill to climb. The euphoria of the big win gives way to the anxiety of "Now what?" You can learn to deal with this in a healthy way, but you will need to learn to deal with it.

My approach is to try to be consistent enough in my work that getting a hit doesn't matter. Post hit, I would just keep doing the same thing I was already doing, equilibrium maintained. And I somehow know that it's what someone really successful would do, too. So that's what I'm doing now. Might as well get a head start.