Do a lot of work.

I recently attended a college graduation in West Palm Beach, Florida. My little (though not so little) sister and her little (teeny-tiny) boyfriend walked among 500+ students to receive recognition (annnd paper certification!) for their years of hard work, late nights, dedication, meeting goals and losing sleep.

I think most of us could say we know one person or another who turned their tassel this May: whether for an undergrad degree in this or that, a master's of higher learning, or a specifically fine-tuned doctorate in anything from the art world to the medical underworld and beyond.

The question then is: now what?

This isn't really a question reserved for the end of an era or the end of a school year. Rather, it applies more to the beginning of something, to the next-chaptering, to deciding where we go from here.

I can't help but turn to this particular print (one I've been led to through my new endeavors with Holstee) as a means of encouragement not only for myself, but for those who have launched out into the universe, those little artists with big hopes and big disappointments, to you, and to me, I give you this unfailing wisdom:

This here, truer than true, came from radio personality and NPR host Ira Glass. And even though its pertinence still rings true in my life, my life three years past the experience of being a student, of attending classes, of writing papers until three in the morning, I think it especially makes sense for those who are just starting out, walking for the first time on their own two feet, somewhere other than a hallway or a dorm room or an assembly.

The artist's life is a challenge, but it's one of the best lives their is to be had. It's the hardest thing EVER to not be your own critic, to settle into a routine, to give up what drives you in order to make a paycheck. It only makes sense, the world tells you, you need money to survive, artists don't make money, but fast food workers do. I should have majored in something else, you'll start to think, I should have been a pharmaceutical rep or a high school teacher.

I can say this with all certainty because I've done it. And every once in awhile, on my very worst days, I do it still. But we don't quit. We don't continue to seek "goodness" in what we're doing but rather we call it good because it's being DONE. The only thing we give up is the fear that if-someone-sees this/reads this/watches this/finds this-they-will-hate-me-and-know-I'm-a-fraud attitude. We continue on, we continue to recite monologues in the dark and paint until our hands stop working and write until our words run dry or we fall asleep from sheer exhaustion. We, as Glass insists, fight our way through by doing, which is something we might keep doing forever. But ask anyone who's done it, ask anyone who's fought and then faltered and then fought again: worth it, worth it, worth it.