Reprogramming Forty-Nine Years
On people-pleasing, algorithms, and the strength of being perceived as a failure.
Thursday was a terrible day, at the tail end of a couple of emotional weeks. Mostly kicked off by the quiet disappointment of other people. And their disappointment in me. Constant, grinding, crushing disappointment.
So on Friday, I took myself away for something simple. A local cafe, coffee, sun, and my sketchbook. Between the first line I drew and the last sip of coffee I tasted, I thought “fuck it”.
Not only had I caught myself trying to please people, but I’d also caught myself trying to please algorithms.
You see, for my birthday in May, I started a project called ‘50 before 50’, a video on YouTube every week until I turn fifty.
I began with coaching videos because I thought that was how I’d make more money as a coach. Then I realised I didn’t enjoy it, so I moved to art tutorials, chasing eyeballs instead of clients. That felt unnatural too. A bit boring, if I’m honest.
I told myself I had to stick it out, that it might pay off in a year or two.
But patience isn’t one of my virtues, and I need to feel good in the now, not just the promise of some future payoff.
Then my latest video flopped. That was the best thing, to be honest.
I’d been trying to win an algorithmic popularity contest. Watching the numbers sit there flat and refusing to move felt like being ignored at a party I’d spent hours getting ready for.
I became another drop in an ocean of ish, average and meh.
That realisation cut deeper than a few YouTube videos. It reached the actual belief underneath, the one that says if I’m not chosen, I’m not worth much. Back to those days at school when I had to listen to the bullies who had chosen to hate me.
A fish out of water
Over the years, I always struggled to feel like I fit in.
I’ve given myself such a hard time for not following the well-trodden path and rebelling against convention.
While also carrying the weight of trying to fit into that very same convention and approval. This contradiction and tension are very real in my body; aches and pains constantly plague me.
I’ve felt envy towards those ‘normal people’ who do normal things. I felt judgment towards and from, especially, women in comfortable careers with financial security who seem to get society’s approval. An approval I’ve never quite managed to receive.
Whose approval was I actually chasing? If I’m honest, I think I wanted proof that I was allowed to take up space without having to earn it first.
Despite my best efforts to be good, likeable and pleasing to people and latterly to algorithms, I feel like I failed.
The Feeling of Failure
Failure feels like a gut punch, a somersault, and a lump in my throat that causes me to cough. My head turns inside out, and a coldness sweeps over my entire body. I feel dizzy.
It’s a feeling I want to go away. So I reach for the next plan to make it disappear. To be better next time. To be more of what I should be rather than what I want to be.
Except this time, instead of pushing it away, I lean in. I embrace that familiar, uncomfortable feeling of a flopped video, a few lost followers, even the disapproving comments by well-meaning people.
I’ve come to see the willingness to be perceived as a failure as a strength.
Not because failing feels good. Instead, it means doing what's true to me, not performing to somebody else's idea of success.
Which brings me back to that Friday. The cafe. The coffee. The f-it moment.
In a world that already feels divided, why was I trying to fit some impossible standard of acceptability? Not just other people’s standard. The algorithm’s too.
It’s time to reprogramme forty-nine years of bullshit programming.
As a creator, I create.
Whatever that costs me in likes, followers, or approval, I was never going to get anyway.
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Funky fish!
Today I’m sharing new work. Funky fish! A mixed-media collaged collection of my drawings, redefined on a vintage fish illustration and made into something quite extraordinary.
It’s taken quite a change in direction since I moved to Hassocks from Brighton in February this year.
Unintentionally.
By simply following where my curiosity wanted to go.
Only in art do I seem to trust my instincts. To lessen the noise and be more present to what my heart and gut are saying over the incessant noise and chatter in my head.
It’s new, and it excites me. I don’t know and don’t care if it pleases anyone but me right now. That’s refreshing. That’s exciting.
That’s what it means to do less and be more.
Have an inspired day 💕
Thank you for this. I constantly feel like a failure too, in a system I am not sure I chose to be in, but find myself anyway. Thank you for your wonderfully timed reminder. And may our 50's be our best chapter yet xx
I think so many people can relate to this. I deleted instagram from my phone as I was creating for yen algorithm with terrible results. Both in terms of views and in terms of my creative integrity. It feels very transgressive to create for the sake of creating - not to make money, not to heal, not to teach, not to connect to community, but because you simply have a desire to engage in the creative process. Wild!