I don't know about you, but I have been having the most difficult time not taking things so personal. Every time I feel angry, upset, or displaying some kind of emotion where I don't agree with what's gone down, someone will say to me, "Don't take it personal."
And I'm not going to lie to you, but whenever someone tells me that, I literally want to punch them in the face.
Don't take it personal? A friend just told me, "If you're not taking it personal then you aren't really committing to it." That is my thought process when it comes to situations like these. I get emotional and I do take it personal (maybe too personal and too emotional, but come on). I don't just create art or designs for people all willy nilly, without any sort of feeling or committless dedication. I'm not the kind of person who's mute when I'm doing a job. I show agitation, happiness, joy, anger, a whole range of emotions when I'm working on whatever because I have to care what I'm working on or else it won't come out remotely good. That's just me, though (but maybe my one friend gets it).
I haven't learned how to separate myself from a Gaby who feels everything from the Gabriela that's doing the work. I combine my personalities into one when I'm working, because I can't do without the other. I can't be the artist that I am without taking a part of me to the other me. I don't know how to not be one without the other. I am a human being who creates art and who feels a full spectrum of emotion while doing it.
I am currently reading The Godfather by Mario Puzo and the characters of the Corleone family repeatedly say/think, "It's business. It's not personal." I, myself, am repeating this sentence in my mind because I have to remember that whatever a person will say about my work, it's nothing against me personally (even they will have the nerve to tell me, "This isn't anything against you, but..."). But this is where I falter: How can I not take it personally when a piece of me is in the work I do? There is the smallest bit of me in whatever I've worked on, and when someone says they didn't like this or that it'll feel like they didn't like this or that about me. It sort of kills me that no one understands this about me. Which will lead me to feeling ridiculous for being bummed out by what someone said because I know I shouldn't. I should be professional and move on from their words or corrections to my work, but I can't.
I have an internship with a magazine where I have designed the whole layout for this month's issue (it's a new internship). I had a week to complete the design and I successfully completed the entire 12 pages before deadline to mine and my editor's satisfaction (and also his surprise, I'm assuming). I poured my entire being into this because it meant so much to me that my work will be recognized (finally!). Of course, I anticipated that I would have to make some changes to my own work when I sat down with my editor (which I did and I was still pleased with what got accomplished), but I didn't think of what the consulting designer would say of my work (let alone what she'd alter).
Earlier today I saw the final design of the issue, and, although the blueprint of my designs are still there, it isn't my work anymore. It doesn't feel like I belong to it. To convey the words of what I felt, of what I continue to feel, would be a feeling of detachment from a project I've (probably and unnecessarily) stressed over. I care for this publication. Not just because I am a contributing artist to it, but because it stands for something positive. I was working on something positive and my work doesn't feel positive, to me. I feel insulted. I feel pushed back because, although, there's the faintest hint of me in the design, it isn't me.
So yes, I am taking it personal and I don't know how to stop feeling this way.
How can I be an artist (an artist who'll bring herself, and all of her emotion) and not feel or care? Maybe I should stop caring what others think. But, like I said, I don't know how to know how to just suddenly turn it off. This bothers me, so much, because (and I am aware) there will always be people you can't please and there are times where I actually won't care what a person's opinion is of something I've created, but there are times (like this one for instance) where I care, where I am taking it personal. In this case, someone has altered my work. I'm taking it personal, I am hurt. And this is my conflict about the whole situation: I am doing work for them, it is ultimately their voice they want expressed. Maybe I didn't meet it.
I feel too much.
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