Welcome to 31 Days of Scary Hope: encouragement to go from IS to COULD BE. Start at the beginning HERE. Subscribe for free HERE.
-----
Bright and sunny is what you picture when you have hope. The scary side is the part that holds you back.
The scary side is knowing that hope can dangle and look like it’s never going to happen. It can stay unfulfilled and crush you. It can be confusing and hard to explain, even to yourself. Plus, hope involves change and commitment. All this is scary.
For a few days here, we’re on the commitment part.
How scary can hope get?
It can thrill you, kill you, and make you famous. In that order.
It did Vincent Van Gogh.
He had hopes of expressing himself so fully that he had nothing left to express. He also had hopes of bringing joy to people and leaving something behind for mankind.
All his hopes were eventually fulfilled—times a million. Yay!
He didn’t get to see the whole thing, though. The first part—the expressing himself part—he fully experienced. The frustration of not seeing the second part—leaving something valuable for mankind—devastated him. He finally killed himself.
Commit with no guarantees, for its own sake
He didn’t just think, dream, and wait for hope. He put his heart, soul, and body in it.
Once he decided to become a painter, Van Gogh spent a year teaching himself to draw. He was convinced drawing came first, so he committed to personal study, learning, practicing, and experimenting. He dove into the commitment pool and swam full time. Then he began painting.
He was so obsessed with his hope that he had no time to work on anything else to bring in income. He depended on his brother, his biggest encourager, to support him during his entire 9-year art career. Vincent was all in.
He completed 900 paintings in nine years. That’s 100 per year. That’s one every 3-4 days. He had a few long periods when he didn’t paint, so his painting pace was actually even more intense.
He sold one, just before he died. Did he want to sell more? Absolutely. Did he commit to painting even though he didn’t sell more? Absolutely.
Commitment hurts
When you read here what he said, substitute your hope for his thoughts on “painter,” “paintings,” and “picture.” You words might be “wife” or “parent” or “debt free” or “writer” or “lover and follower of God” or “grace giver” or “entrepreneur” or “pastor” or “major league ballplayer” (seriously, that was me when I was a kid, but, you know, no commitment). Whatever it is, personalize this for yourself:
If you became a painter, one of the things that would surprise you is that painting and everything connected with it is quite hard work in physical terms. Leaving aside the mental exertion, the hard thought, it demands considerable physical effort, and that day after day.
At times it makes me quite melancholy that the result is always “unsaleable.” But I go on, and harden myself against it. Others have had to bear it too. I repeat: work in spite of all indifference is not easy to keep up, but what is easy isn't worth much.
I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell. The day will come when people will see that they are worth more than the price of the paint and my own living, very meager after all, that is put into them.
Don’t give up—you might miss something
In the end, Van Gogh forever changed how people think about art and beauty. He brought joy to mankind and generated millions of dollars of income (for others). He was just beginning to experience a hint of recognition and success when he killed himself.
He never knew that what he hoped for was on the way.
At the time, all he knew was this was his only painting out of 900 that ever sold…
No one talks much about that painting today.
He never got to see this next one sell; it was one of his failures…
What if you committed one-hundredth as much as Van Gogh?
And, of course, you only suffer one-hundredth as much, too. No ear chopping or suicide. You get to live to maybe see your hope fulfilled.
What if you had one-hundredth of Van Gogh’s impact? Or one-thousandth?
Would it be worth the commitment?
-------
I've always loved Van Gogh's art. Now I have a new reason to love it even more. Good stuff.
Posted by: Jody | Friday, October 21, 2011 at 01:01 PM