Sharika Roland

It is very easy to get distracted from” Your” path. I have ben distracted by trying to lead someone else along his path. You cannot do that. the only way to lead is by example. You have the idea, you have to do it. no one else.

There is another thing about paths that is real. Drive is an energy that wants to go somewhere and it will go somewhere. You can bet on that. But the important thing is to see if the drive you have been given is going to the right place. It is hard to tell when you are in the middle of driving. It feels right, you think well I am going forward but you might be going in circles. Worry is energy going in circles. Nagging is energy going in circles.

Procrastinating is energy going in circles. You are always the one driving, If you are being driven then it really is something else. It is procrastination in disguise. You not driving takes on many faces. Once you begin to look for them you will find them. And you will see the same pattern repeated your whole life. I saw this in myself this morning because I looked and then I saw it everywhere in my life. It is sneaky but if you see it it will lose its power over you.

Self talk will take a fearful turn whenever we dwell too long on one idea. Why do we always think of every possible bad thing that could happen? We hardly ever focus on what good things that might happen if we changed our lives in anyway.  Where does the fear come from?  Have we been horribly disappointed in the past?  Usually not. We have managed in the past to get through big things.

I once lived in San Francisco and decided I would only be an artist. I had no money or even a place to l live. I sold charcoal sketches on the street. This sounds absurd to me now but then I had no fear. Looking back I am sure that if my parents had known they would have been scared out of their wits about me. But I did not die. No matter what you embark on you almost always do not die. And if you do die, well at least you lived a while.

The day of anyones art opening is a mixed bag, Yes you are glad it is over and you are done painting but now the worst part comes . You have to stand there and listen while people look at your work and make the comments. It doesn’t matter how many say they love it and go on and on. Talk is cheap and art is a business so you have to sell these works. For someone to lay down several thousand dollars in todays market, You better have the best paintings you have ever done. they have to connect with them emotionally and love them for that to happen. Its like falling in love. It either happens or it doesn’t. The gallery owner is depending on you selling them or she would not have picked you out.
You can only do your best and let the chips fall where they may. This is the number one best time to buy art in the past thirty years though so for buyers it is fantastic.

Artist and buyer and dealer and webmaster are all connected. Hopefully it is a wonderful synergy that brings forth joy to everyone connected to the circle.

The most important work you can do for your life is to do what only you can do. That is your biggest gift to everyone else. The wonderfulness of each of us being unique is that we all have a special job to do. Special with a capitol S. People tend to down lay their gifts in their minds as they are constantly comparing them to some one else. Who cares if someone can write better than you or sing better or paint better. There is only one you and you have a precious uniqueness that you have to serve everyone else. I am grateful for Tiny Tim and his weird voice and Kiri Takanawa. I love Miros work and also Caravaggio.

You still have to strive for excellence but it is your own excellence with your point of view. There isn’t just one excellent.

It is hard to see obstacles as anything but stops. You bang you head against the wall and it will not move. One way to get past this is to change the only thing you can. Your perception of them. If you see an obstacle and think of it as a blessing instead of a curse your mind will start to go in that direction. How is it a blessing to you that you get rejected from a publisher or lose your job or get sick. Just by looking at it as a new thing that will eventually help you will make you relax more and you will begin to see the possibilities. If you were in solitary confinement in a jail cell, then you options are limited but at least you can still think.
Most of us do not have that extreme of an obstacle and we always can do something in the world to move ahead.
I always try and think of all the things I have right now and they always outnumber the obstacles. Always. If you are not scared and looking only at what bad thing happened, you are free to think of how to use it to your advantage. If you only look at the obstacle you will be totally unable to move. The obstacle will own you. Change your focus and any obstacle will be unable to stop you from moving ahead.