What does it mean to be successful?
The question is posed by a myriad of TED talks, self-help books, and sermons. The provided answers vary enormously in scope, helpfulness, and truthfulness. It’s amazing how a commonly used word can mean such different things to different people.
While the definition of success is hazy, the antonym is clearer: failure. Everybody wants to be called successful, nobody wants to be called a failure.
So we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to succeed, whatever that may mean. (Let’s vaguely define it as a ‘good outcome’.)1 Naturally, some level of ‘success’ is a mandatory requirement for survival. We need to eat, breathe, and sleep—complete failure to do so will result in death.
Where do we draw the line? At some point, the stress that’s keeping us alive turns into an enemy corroding our peace.
We need to be able to fail.
Again, there is a multitude of ‘inspirational’ talks about how some famous figure was first despised and dejected until their ‘big break’; textbooks document how each perceived failure of a scientist or inventor was a hidden step towards innovation.
But failure is more than a clickbait plot device—it’s essential to our emotional and creative health.
To sit in failure is to acknowledge weakness, to acknowledge that we are insufficient on our own, that we need help. ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’2 Ultimately, we are all failures who need Jesus to redeem us.
This is true on a small scale too, not just of our salvation. The reality is that learning takes time. You don’t wake up one morning suddenly able to perform neurosurgery, it takes decades of highly specific training. The same is true (to varying degrees) of any skill, whether it be digital marketing strategy, cooking, or translating Estonian.
Like a baby learning to walk, we must ‘give ourselves permission’ for things to take time (and I must confess, I’m not particularly good at this).
Getting comfy with failure also means deciding when to give up—and not beating yourself up for it. Even when we begin to adopt the attitude that things take time, it’s a whole other thing to accept that we can’t do everything.
If you’re anything like me, I love to lightly dabble in new skills without actually committing. I have been through phases of acrylic painting, poetry, animation, and filmmaking—let alone languages, where I have started learning French, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Indonesian, Ainu, Dutch, and Ancient Greek—and never stuck with it for more than a couple of months.3
Consequently, you could call me an amateur artist, poet, linguist, etc. We can trace the etymology of amateur from
1784, ‘one who has a taste for some art, study, or pursuit, but does not practice it,’ from French amateur ‘one who loves, lover’…
Meaning ‘one who cultivates and participates (in something) but does not pursue it professionally or with an eye to gain’.
The concept of an amateur can often be looked down upon. There is some good reason for this: picking up my earlier example, you don’t want an amateur neurosurgeon improvising action on a brain tumour.
Despite this, I think the title of amateur is one to embrace. What a beautiful concept: ‘one who loves’—one who has interests scattered all over the place, who is willing to make a mess and clean it up again.
Instead of striving for perfection, there is freedom in being released to create Bad Art.
Please note that by saying ‘Bad Art’, I don’t mean creating things that are morally deficient or harmful to others. My idea of Bad Art is giving yourself permission to create, regardless of how poor the outcome’s aesthetic may be. Making what we might call Good Art has its place in worshipping God also4, but don’t let that prevent you from getting out there and having a go.
If you keep making Bad Art, perhaps it will improve, and you will be faced with a measure of success; perhaps it will stay rubbish. Either way, you can use it to worship God and learn more about yourself.
Created as images of the Creator,5 we were created to create. Like a loving Father watching a toddler grasp a crayon and scrawl all over the place, God delights in our art, regardless of its quality.
Rest assured in your identity as ‘those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.’6 ‘Perfect love drives out all fear’7—including the fear of failure.
So, get out there and dabble in a new thing. Become a Professional Amateur, I dare you.
—Bethany
Of course, it’s up to further debate what ‘good’ is.
Romans 3v23.
Hindi and Ainu are the two that I only did about an hour of. All of the others, I spent weeks, months, or years on.
This is another blog post I will eventually write, In Defense of Good Christian Art.
Genesis 1v27.
Jude 1.
1 John 4:18.