Brain Food #560
How do you know you are there?
Thoughts of the day
Good morning, and happy Friday.
Psychologist Amy Cuddy famously said, “Fake it till you become it”. But the real question is: when do know you’ve become ‘it’? How do you know you are there?
I recently came across an old interview of Jenny Holzer in The Gentlewoman magazine, in which she reveals not only her timidity but also how challenging it is to define one’s own identity, without the need for external validation.
JK: Did you ever dream that your words – in big letters – would one day illuminate Times Square?
JH: No, it was quite the opposite. I wasn’t sure that I was, could be, should be an artist. So all the way through the Truisms and into the Inflammatory Essays, I was wondering whether I was just another crackpot. It was only sometime in the ’80s that I began to hope that I really was an artist.
There is no real answer to the question, but there is still the ability to craft a recipe for staying on the right path: a blend of hope, belief, and perseverance.
And perhaps there is no real ‘there’ either. Our goalposts shift, and so do we. Where you are currently standing, possibly striving to get to a higher place, could be someone else’s ideal.
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