Maybe I’m not supposed to do this
There are times when I’ve wondered if I made the wrong choice.
Times when I’ve wondered, “Maybe I’m not supposed to be doing this creative work.“
I’ve often felt like nothing is working. I never seem to be able to get the traction and momentum that I want. I can’t seem to draw as much attention as I would like to the things I spend hours, days, months, and years working on.
To say that it’s frustrating and discouraging doesn’t feel deep enough.
It hurts. In my darkest moments, I feel a deep sense of rejection. I get scared and wonder if I’m just not very good, and no one has been kind enough to let me know.
I’ve wondered if I should quit.
Under a curse
I was recently encouraged by the following quote from Tim Keller from “Every Good Endeavor.”
“Just because you cannot realize your highest aspirations in work does not mean you have chosen wrongly, or are not called to your profession, or that you should spend your life looking for the perfect career, that is devoid of frustration…You should expect to be regularly frustrated in your work even though you may be in exactly the right vocation.””
This insight has helped me see that feeling hurt, afraid, disappointed, and frustrated is (by itself) not very good criteria for judging whether or not we should continue in our creative work.
The Christian perspective is that, though work itself is not a curse, it is under the curse of sin. Genesis 3 explains why our creative pursuits are often frustrating and disheartening. It also explains why the frustration in our work so disorients us; it literally shouldn’t be this way.
Under the wisdom of a Biblical mindset, we see that things aren’t necessarily “going wrong” just because our work is harder and less fruitful than we would like.
Biblical mindset vs. Cultural assumptions
The more I’ve submitted to the Biblical way of thinking about creative work, the more I’ve become aware of common estimations that run counter to the wisdom of God.
For example, our culture seems to assume that if you are meant to do creative work, you will naturally flourish and succeed. We allow for a little bit of struggle at first, but if you don’t find a breakthrough within a reasonable amount of time, then it must mean you’re not _meant_ to do creative work.
I’m not promoting the idea that we should put blinders on and plow full steam ahead no matter what; I think paying attention to feedback is important. I’m saying that struggling to accomplish our (often lofty) goals in our creative work isn’t a good indication of whether we should continue doing that creative work.
We should have lofty goals with the understanding that we will struggle to get there.
And, in truth, we might not ever reach all or any of our goals. But that doesn’t mean we made the wrong choice by pursuing our creative endeavors.
Press on and press in
So how do we know if we should keep on keeping on in our creative work? Well, I’m not going to dive into that in this post, but I did write a few thoughts here and here that could be helpful as you assess what kind of work you should pursue.
For today, I just want us to take a breath together and not let big negative feelings about our creative work unnecessarily derail us.
Work is frustrating. Creative work can be disheartening. But you’re likely doing great work, and you just need to press on, press in, and trust God with the growth.
