Creating Your Life’s Work
by Sara Mellas
Creation.
When I say this word to you, what comes to mind?
You may be thinking of making things. Something artistic, working with your hands, or shaping an idea. Whatever may be in your mind’s eye, I doubt the first thing you envisioned was yourself.
I am an artist. I’ve been an artist my entire life, so creation is something I think about all the time. I believe creation is simply transformation. The process of taking existing ideas, materials, or energies, and transforming them into something new and different.
I believe the driving force for all artists is the desire to transform personal experiences and emotions into things that are beautiful, entertaining, or inspiring. To create is to take what’s inside of us, and turn it outwards, thus creating a space in which we can connect with others through recognition of shared experience.
I could stand here and talk lofty definitions of creativity and artistry all night, but I’ll be real. I was raised in New England by two well-meaning Massholes who as soon as I hinted at wanting to be a musician said, “look, we want you to always follow your dreams, but you better make sure to follow them in a way that pays your bills.” It was made clear that I had a job in life, which was to go to school, get good grades, and work hard, so I could be hired for a job that would pay me enough money to be financially independent. And somewhere in all of that, I also had to love what I was doing. I don’t think I’m alone in this experience, as this is a fairly common expectation in American society.
So, I did what I was supposed to. I excelled in primary and secondary school, then got two degrees in music. But not just performance (too risky!). I studied sound engineering and music education, so as to equip myself with *marketable skills.* Out of graduate school I worked directing music programs at various schools and churches, and was eventually hired to conduct a Grammy award-winning children’s choir.
For the majority of my young life, I identified so strongly as a musician, but I always had a variety of other hobbies. I loved to make things beautiful, and I particularly loved to bake and cook. But even though I’d been creating in the kitchen almost daily since the age of four, despite its place in my life as a creative outlet, stress reducer, and means through which I’ve met countless friends, I never considered it more than a frivolous hobby.
Then, at the beginning of 2017, I found myself unemployed. I applied for jobs fervently, but weeks passed, then months passed, and it ended up being a full year I was without a job.
In this year, I not only grew panicked watching the number in my bank account plummet while living in San Francisco, but I also struggled deeply with feelings of purposelessness and lack of fulfillment. Being unemployed challenged my entire sense of identity, while forcing me to realize that all my life, I’d synonymized self-worth with professional status and accomplishment.
During this year of being unemployed, I started baking and cooking more than I ever had before. I baked so much that I started carrying around a large woven basket, filled with whatever I’d made that day, ready to give it away to whoever would take it. I made so many new connections and deepened my existing relationships, simply by offering people food I’d created. I observed how people would light up when I pulled something from my basket, saying “I made you this,” and I relished that. In this period of my life, when I was desperate for my days to feel productive and purposeful, it occurred to me that if my only accomplishment in a day was that I helped someone smile, then I could rest assured my day had been meaningful.
Nearly four years later, I’ve come to believe that no matter how we are employed or unemployed, or where our passions lie, the majority of us are in pursuit of our “life’s work.” We seek out the job, project, or creation that is going to fulfill us, give our existence meaning, and most importantly, make a sizeable impact on others. This is an innate human desire that transcends any particular field of interest or expertise.
But how is it that we qualify meaning? The type of life’s work I’m referring to is hardly monetary. Money cannot buy feelings of fulfillment and purpose. Then what about our impact? Can we truly quantify that? In a society growing increasingly influenced by social networking, where we’re pressured to reach large audiences and garner widespread acclaim, it becomes easy to forget that impact and influence are not always measurable by numbers, metrics, and awards.
I’ve always loved to drive. I will always opt to drive myself somewhere over any other mode of transportation. So when I think of the pursuit of one’s life’s work, I liken it to a road trip.
And before I dive into this metaphor please know that I’m not up here to say “hey man, it’s about the journey! Not the destination!”
But when we head out on a road trip, we have a plan of where we want to end up, an idea of how we’re going to get there, and the amount of time it’s going to take. But how often does a road trip happen exactly as we planned it? God willing, we get to our destination, but there’s inevitably traffic, or construction detours, or an accident. The GPS re-routes us, or we get a flat tire. Or sometimes, we choose to stray from the map and take the scenic route. Maybe we stop and explore a town we never knew existed.
If we stray from the route whether by circumstance or choice, even if we get to where we’re heading later or earlier than intended, or hell, even if we never arrive at our destination, do we then deem the trip meaningless? Do we assume it served no purpose?
We all have an idea of where we want to go in life, what we want to do, who we want to be, and in most cases, how we plan to do it. But in the same way that road trips rarely happen according to plan, our lives hardly do either. We lose jobs, relationships end, accidents or emergencies happen. Or perhaps we have a change of heart; we no longer feel impassioned by the things we once did, or we start to feel detached from the people we once believed ourselves to be.
So, how do we continue to live purposefully, and pursue our life’s work, when we can never be certain of life itself? This past year in particular, the majority of us had our concept of certainty starkly challenged, and we were forced to reevaluate. Whether life circumstances necessitate it or personal desires incite it, we have the capacity and the right to transform. To continuously create and recreate ourselves.
A common trait among almost all artists, regardless of discipline, is being observant. Us artistic types have a way of seeking out and gathering inspiration from our surroundings, constantly seeing and feeling the world around us. Life provides an abundance of inspiration, so long as we are readily seeking it.
A big part of my career is styling for commercials and advertisements. I’ll share with you what is a typical scenario I experience. I’ll get hired for a job, working with a team of art directors and photographers. Prior to the shoot, we’ll meet with the client, who’ll send us a list of reference shots, indicating how they want the photos to look. The day of the shoot, I show up with my suitcase of supplies, wearing my belt of tools, and I’ll have gone to the grocery store for all the ingredients needed to create these photos. Basically, I am armed and ready to be the Michelangelo of roasted chicken.
The photographer and I will get to work, everything will be going well, we’ll have gotten the shot to look just right, and we’ll send it off to the client for feedback. Then the client will look at it and say, “huh, this is nice, but can we add peaches around the chicken?” And I’ll say “you have us in Chicago. And it’s February.” And they’ll say, “what’s your point?”
So back to the grocery store I go, where I know I’m not going to find peaches. What do I do? I get pears, and I get orange Kool-Aid. I go back to the set, I cut the pears just so, and I soak the slices in the Kool-Aid, then I pat them dry, and take a Q-tip, and rub the skins so they’re fuzzy. And as far as the client knows, they’ve got peaches.
We may not have control in life, but we always have a choice. We can choose to feel that things are happening to us, but once you adopt the creative mentality of an artist, things start to seem a lot less coincidental. With the slightest shift of awareness and intention, it becomes clear that things are not happening to us, but for us. Life provides the tools we need, through opportunity or adversity, but it is up to us to be resourceful, to choose how we want to use these tools, to decide what kind of artists we want to be.
Art is a very instinctual, intuitive thing. But nevertheless, all art forms have teachable techniques, time-proven standards of what characterizes well-made or performed work. For instance in music, there’s intonation, rhythmic accuracy, phrasing. While all art is subjective and can’t be fairly deemed “good” or “bad,” it’s evident when an artist has become proficient in certain techniques.
Similarly, there are traits that are collectively recognized as the ideals of human nature. All of us are born with natural inclinations towards certain abilities, certain qualities. But we get to decide who we create ourselves to be. And in the same way an artist has to routinely practice their skills in order to make great art, the way a musician has to run scales or a dancer has to hone their coordination, we have to intentionally practice the qualities we want to embody.
The more we practice our unique, personal artistry, the more attuned we become to who we are, the more fully we embody our purpose. We devote so much of our energy and time to the work we do outside ourselves: our jobs, relationships, activities. And though these things are incredibly important, perhaps we should allow the work we do be a natural extension of the meaning and fulfillment we create within ourselves. Because even if we achieve perceived success through our outside work, are we to then build some kind of glass castle around it, and trap ourselves inside to keep it from shattering?
We’ve all heard it said, “the only thing you have in life is yourself.” Often this phrase gets spoken cynically, after a relationship ends or a job is lost, implying that we can’t rely on anything or anyone. But if you isolate this phrase from any subjective circumstance, can you hear the beauty in it? You always have yourself! So long as you are standing on this side of the dirt with air coming in and out of your lungs and a beating heart, you have you. So what work could possibly be more valuable, than that which you do within yourself?
When working as a stylist, it’s my job to prepare and arrange the objects in the scene to look as beautiful as possible. While I do that, it’s the photographer’s job to adjust the lighting, to work with the exposure, and balance the highlights and shadows to capture the scene in a certain complimentary way. This takes far longer than you might imagine, no matter the photographer’s level of expertise. Depending on what’s being photographed, where we’re shooting it, and countless other factors, we always have to make adjustments to get the lighting just right. But once it’s right, and that first photo is taken, it’s a bit magical. I never cease to be amazed by what skillfully cast lighting can do. Sure, I’ve worked hard to make the subject of the photo beautiful to a naked eye, but when I see it in the photograph, featured in just the right light, its beauty is greatly intensified. And if I’m lucky, some of the flaws even seem to disappear.
We all have highlights and shadows within us. I believe it is our responsibility as human beings to adjust and balance them, in order to fully expose who we are. This light inside us can’t be contained; it wants to reflect outward. And when we purposefully work to balance this light, we start to illuminate the people and spaces around us. And in the same way the photographer perfects the lighting on set to make whatever I styled appear more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, there is someone, there are a lot of someones, who need your very light in order to fully see their own beauty.
To think, it’s not unlike pulling a box of cookies from your basket and saying, “I made you this.” These moments don’t come with a standing ovation, a major headline, or spot on a best-sellers list. But what seems more meaningful? This is what I mean when I say impact is not always measurable by metrics and awards. When we use our light to illuminate another, we may never know the ways in which they’ll use that beauty, the art they’ll create within themselves, to share with another, then another. Like all artforms, the effects of self-artistry are intangible, but the impact is undeniable.
If a photographer doesn’t balance the exposure of a photo, the image is lost. If a florist doesn’t water the flowers, they wilt. If a musician falls short of the notes, the melody disappears.
What happens when we ignore the artistry of our souls?
Self-artistry takes practice. It takes a lifetime of practice, and the work can never be truly finished. But if each and every one of us chose to be gainfully self-employed as artists of our own being, if we made a daily commitment to practice creating ourselves, seeking out the beauty in our experiences, and using it to craft who we truly are. If we worked to balance the light within us and shine it outwards to illuminate the beauty in others… imagine how beautiful this world would be.
So, the next time you hear the word “creation,” my hope is that in your mind’s eye, you see yourself. To create our souls – this is our life’s work.
Originally performed at TEDx Gainesville, June 5, 2021.