Finding the Finish Line

Graphic design is my passion. I guess.

I'm good at it, I'm told, but I'm not. Nothing ever looks quite right. No, it's not as bad as the picture above (which is really quite beautiful—the placement of the frog using the rule of thirds and the text is on the golden ratio between the bottom and the halfway point, quite amazing really). But for some reason whatever I do never has any of the polish that other people have.

Sure, it could be more creative or unique or interesting, but it never looks finished.

Finishing things is hard. I'm particularly bad at this. A year and a half ago I started Game of Thrones and I'm still only halfway through it. Last Christmas I started Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle but never finished, so I restarted a few weeks ago and I'm still not halfway through.

Other than books, I started a started the senior video and never finished (due to technical difficulties, but I still plan to finish it). I started a paper maché chair two years ago but never even got to the stage where I put the actual paper maché down. I still want to finish it; it was going to be all Eames–esque and stuff. I would have stained it red and maybe have newspaper comic through the stain and glossy finish, with wooden dowel legs.

I tried to start a graphic design business but gave up after not getting any clients. I'm bad at finishing.

Sometimes I wonder why this is. Perhaps it's rooted in my tendency to procrastinate. But I think it's really rooted in my fear of failure. When I was 7 my sister gave me a shirt from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. It had the NASA logo and beneath it read "Failure is not an option". I was only a kid, but it spoke to me for some reason.

I asked why, and she explained how if you fail on something like going to space you die. You either do it, or you don't go. Failure is dangerous. Failing a math test is less drastic, but it's still not a great thing to do.

I guess this is why I never finish things. It's at the very least part of the reason. I didn't finish the newspaper chair because I was lazy, but I didn't succeed in the graphic design business because I didn't want to fail. I was far too lazy to put in the work needed to succeed.

If I had gotten clients I probably could have been fairly good. Even if I wasn't good, I'd at least be better than the other graphic designers on craigslist, because they suck.

But I didn't get clients. They don't come running to you. You have to find them, and I was afraid of finding them and being told "No." A "no" is a failure, and I was afraid of that. I may be a decent graphic designer, but I'm a terrible finisher.