Did I Quit? Am I a Failure?

I read this blog post by a dancer and was moved by this woman's experience of having her career questioned.

Whether we come to the question ourselves, or are confronted by it from others, anyone who has studied in one field and ended up with a career path that looks drastically different has wondered this.

It seems to me to be particularly true for anyone who studied in an artistic field. I read this article recently where a mother was pleading for parents not to dismiss their children's artistic pursuits in college. There exists a fear that one can't study the arts because it will make you a starving artist. But if you DO choose to study the arts, then you have to keep practicing them outside of college your whole life or you're a quitter or a failure. I think in part, the second reaction is fueled by the fear in the first.

Why is this?

We have the hardest time justifying the value of the arts despite everyone loving some aspect of the arts or another (you may not like theatre, but chances are you love music). We cannot justify it despite studies that demonstrate that kids excel in more academic areas when they also study the arts. It is also true that artists find themselves successfully in many other fields. Why then this fight for arts in school, for funding of our most important cultural assets, for continuing to instill fear of failure in every high school graduate who wants to go on to study the arts even if they don't know yet where that study will take them?

Did the money I spent on voice lessons in college go to waste? I sing in my church choir every week. You ask them if the confidence I gained from those lessons was worth the expense. At the very least this article about the health benefits of choral singing would suggest that I've made an investment in preventative healthcare.

From studying the arts (particularly theatre) I learned about hard work, how to do tedious work, persistence though repetitive work, producing consistent work, organizational skills, a sense of people including body language as communication, and I found myself better in touch with people, with humanity.

Certain things are habit forming. Practicing creativity is habit forming. Suddenly you think creatively about everything. You are able to function within a box as directed, but also to imagine what may exist outside that box - the "what ifs". You can drill down into a singular moment and zoom out to see the big picture the pattern woven. You find that sometimes mistakes are opportunities and you learn to course correct on the fly - improvise. Or, you learn how to scrap something you worked hard on and start over again - frustrating, but a part of life.

So, if I'm not onstage or backstage each day - did I quit or fail? No. I used the myraid skills I learned and adapted them to other interests and pursuits. I may take the stage again or not. I will keep singing. I will pick up the paint brush, if only to paint some giraffes for my son.

Quitter? Never.

UPDATE 8/22/13 - I just found this article from Monday, August 19th on Huffington Post about the value of the arts to business. Thought you might enjoy it.