Comparisons Are Easily Done - A Story on Anxiety, Art, and Achievements

When I was in college, I feared a LOT of things. I felt like I didn't fit in.

More than 5 years after, I realized maybe I really didn't fit in. Or maybe I didn't try hard enough.

The thing is... I didn't try new things enough.

I was scared.

I didn't know what to do. My anxiety was always up the roof. When I think about college, all I remember are the memories that I dreaded. But it's probably because I didn't believe in myself enough.

One of the reasons why I didn’t like college was that comparisons were inevitable and it didn’t help that I took art related courses. During my first year, I took Fine Arts. Obviously we would need to produce a lot of artworks during the year. I never felt that I was good enough when we would deliver our plates. While most had a lot of art skills to show, I felt that I had close to none in creativity.

I remember an assignment wherein we had to create a bust sculpture out of wire, while everyone else had well defined busts based on their references, I opted for a chaotic artwork where the eyes where bulging and the facial shape was almost discernible from a normal human shape. I told the professor that I thrived in chaos. Let’s just say that even though some of my classmates applauded my bravery to do something utterly different, my professor was not as pleased. In art school, it appeared to me that precision was important during your first years. Some of my talented classmates would start imitating other artists to get the art right. While this is a good way to learn, my tendency was always to deviate. To be different. I guess it was just in my core - I have more stories to tell on that.

From Fine Arts I shifted to Film. And oh boy, I thought me comparing myself to others would end but no it didn’t. It was an agonizing 4-5 years of my university life. Though I made friends and enjoyed the company of my colleagues, something always nagged at me that I was not good enough. I always questioned myself if I was stupid or if I took the wrong course. I remember going to our university counselor after taking a psychology exam and they recommended that the courses they recommend based on the results were STEM related. Oh, how reassuring.

Despite all the anxiety that I felt all those years, I realized after college is when I thrived. I got a short gig in a local network, then I got into corporate studio work for an international company, after that I ventured into remote video work, and then finally I went freelancing full-time. I'm confident to say that I managed to keep myself afloat all these years, despite the competitive nature of the market I am in.

Right now, I'm focusing a lot on studying. I wish I started learning more skills earlier in my life. But I feel there will always be a right time for everything. I am a couple of months into my full-time learning but I'm still open to taking on new gigs and jobs. I haven't answered to a couple of mails in the last couple of weeks. But I'll be sure to answer them when I'm ready to get back into the game.

Suffice to say, I feel like I've achieved so much within a short amount of time. I even got to enter an international short film competition a couple years ago. And I never thought I'd be able to pull off something like that. So here's to a better new year.