You simply cannot. Unless you get lucky.

Surviving the difficult process of making it with your art is almost impossible. The odds are against you each and every day. The road is riddled with an endless amount of potholes, full of disappointment and rejection.

Each hole enough to swallow up your enthusiasm. Destroy your expectations. Ruin your vision. And make sure you give up before you keep trying.

If, during these times, you are constantly stimulated, you will stumble too long in each of these potholes. Maybe you carry on in the face of rejection but, each pothole conveys a lot of information you need to sift through.

Creative awareness is sharpened through those rejection. Each person that tells you what is wrong with your art, why your project will never work, why you should give up - Is giving you priceless information that you need. '

They are telling you how to evolve. How to maneuver. How to grow smarter and faster.

Use that information. Sit there on your couch for an hour, watching the candle flicker and burn, and think the thoughts you have yet to think. In those thoughts lies your key to being able to step out of that pothole and maybe see the next one just a little bit better. Before you fall into it.

There are days where I’ll spend countless hours just to try and salvage 15 minutes of clarity. But that clarity is deadly - The most dangerous weapon I have to persist and persevere when the world is coming for you.

You might move 10 miles, yet only go three miles forward. But do not underestimate that.

Three miles forward means you’re moving towards the light. And you will get there eventually.

But, for now, you must be able to think.