2. Meaning Is Like Money

“Money isn’t a leader, it’s a follower…”

Meaning is really what we all make a living on. Viktor Frankyl was right; it’s what we’re all searching after. If meaning and money were to switch places, how much would we be earning a year? Would we be living below the poverty line? Would we be rich?

I’m convinced that what’s meaningful to us is what’s most valuable. It is the magic. The best of art overflows with it, and the worst barely has it. Meaning is the real leader, and always will be. Money has always been a follower, and seems destined to always be one.

As a personal experiment, I began trying to quantify the meaningful things in my life. I mean, I actually tried to place a dollar value on them. I imagined what a monthly budget would look like if meaning really were like money. All of it was my own creative way to challenge the money mindset whispering endlessly from the made-up-world of advertising that permeates American culture.

I didn’t expect it, but I began to feel differently about my daily experiences. I started to notice small and simple things I might not have considered as deeply before. And oddly my experiences began to feel more like things I would actually spend money on. They started making more sense as a currency too, even more than real money made sense. What does all this have to do with art? More than I thought actually.

I became more keenly aware of the value of art, the expensive stuff, the average stuff, and the cheap stuff. I began to see that the best art was rich with meaning, and came from individuals living meaningfully rich lives. I recognized that “Crime and Punishment” was one of the richest books I had ever read, and that Hemingway’s body of work reflected he’d been both rich and bankrupt multiple times in his lifetime. Reading Bill Gates’ blog and seeing his life, it became clear why so much money has followed him for a long time. I even noticed, no matter the fluctuating opinion, that Coldplay would never have real money problems in life (you can laugh at that one).

Paper money isn’t bad, but it’s only a tool. Exploring the value of meaning was like a shot of clarity for me, especially in this confusing world. Whether you are an artist or an entrepreneur, you have probably experienced at least once how much it sucks to chase money. Money isn’t a leader, it’s a follower, and following after it is about as smart as following a follower is. If standing in a big line is what we want from life, than followers will get us there quickly. If the DMV isn’t what you had in mind for ‘the good life’, then follow the value not the money. For us humans, what’s meaningful to us is often what’s most valuable.

3. Perfectionism is a Pretentious Jerk

“Perfectionism promises us safety if we’ll only sell ourselves short first.”

I am convinced that if we could see Perfectionism as an actual human being, we’d all call him out for being such a jerk. He’d be the worst friend of all time. In reality it’s harder to see it that way.

Perfectionism offers us something if we choose to relate with it. It’s sneaky, harmful for us, and can lead to a lot of disappointment. But in vulnerable moments it’s awful hard to resist.

Perfectionism gives us the ability to reject ourselves first to ease the possible blow of being rejected later. It convinces us to find all the (possible) imperfections ahead of time, so it’s less shocking to our self-esteem if others should point them out.

Another offer (at least it offered it to me) is an ideal. And I used the hell out of it. This one is nasty, and looks a lot like pretentiousness.

My work was never good enough no matter how good it actually was. So instead, I’d take pride in the high standard, like the perfection (i.e. the idealistic vision in my own head) was the art itself.

This gave me the opportunity to both inflate any compliment (i.e. if you think this is good, you should’ve seen the perfect idea it came from in my head!) AND deflect potential criticism (i.e. of course any mortal attempt would fall short of the pure perfection in my mind from which it came, blah blah blah).

Perfectionism promises us safety if we’ll only sell ourselves short first. But after the smoke and mirror show all we get in return is a ripped ticket stub and a ton of disappointment.