How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?

Here’s three lessons that only come with time for authors or creatives.

• Growth takes time.

• Learning takes time.

• Connection takes time.

Growth takes time. Fails that lead to growth aren’t failure. But failure needs wisdom. Sometimes failure teaches you to move on, other times it tells you to keep on, but normally it informs you that you need to re-imagine or refine what you’re already doing.

Learning takes time. It takes a lot of sessions on the field or in the gym to build skill, strength and stamina! Likewise with creativity. You need to work hard, put in the sessions, keep showing up. This kind of grind doesn’t stifle creativity, instead it harrows the ground and makes creativity more likely!

Connection takes time. This is the one I’ve taken the longest to understand, and got wrong most often. You need to work with people, but you can only work with people you’re connected to! At first these doors normally creak slowly open. You can’t force or expect connections. Skill doesn’t open doors, nor does mere hard work, serendipity does! But when the connection comes, if you have nothing to offer, or give, or show, then it may well slip away and you’ll have no idea what you lost.