The Problem with the "Waiting for Approval" Mentality
Something that vexes me the older I get is how often people succumb to the “waiting for approval mentality.”
And what exactly does this mentality entail?
Not allowing yourself to express your opinions because a certain group of people you covet attention from will disagree with you.
Postponing your dream project for 20+ years because you fear that it won’t give you recognition and that there is no audience for it.
Though I view self-help industry as unrealistic and very shallow as a whole, there is one thing they do right: they say that imperfect action (and letting yourself do stuff) is better than waiting forever for permission and contorting yourself and withering away trying to appeal to an audience you don’t even click with.
It’s super condescending of elitists to be all like, “if you weren’t born in our circumstances and you weren’t properly educated like we were, you’re screwed, so just stay stuck where you are because we’ll punish you if you take the actions that aren’t good enough for us.” This is a disgusting way to assert superiority over people who just want to rise above their circumstances (or if they can’t, at least make their lives more bearable).
If you kill your natural self-expression, you will die inside and you’ll never achieve greatness your own way. Someone out there is looking for a masterpiece that only you can produce. No one else. You need to figure out how to unleash your full potential and there are fewer rules for that than you think.
Some people made me feel like I wasn’t allowed to be authentic. That if I pursued what I actually wanted it would be met with disapproval, and that I had to be palatable to a certain audience to get anywhere.
If you are an opportunist, sure, that may work with your worldview. But it suffocated me and held me back.
I refuse to listen to people who tell me I cannot write a great novel if my favorite novelist is Juliet Marillier. I’m not stupid to model myself just one author. I have a wide range of topics that make me curious and many great people I admire, but she is the primary catalyst.
I feel like I’d enjoy the process of novel-writing a lot more with this trajectory:
1) Write a fantasy novel (my go-to genre) that balances cinematic aesthetics (must have some degree of mass appeal, which I believe strengthens a novel) with psychological insights and interiority.
2) Write the sequel to the first novel but make it even more cinematic with high stakes.
3) Write a very experimental fun space opera that’s different from Star Wars and has my signature poetic style.
4) Take my time on a literary masterpiece about the mind of a poet. The practice from the more commercial novels will allow me to produce a stronger novel that would give a visceral reaction (and plot is something you should not neglect). This kind of novel would not be possible if I don’t allow myself to practice commercial fiction—the purpose of the first three is to get the momentum going.
5) Go all-in with an epic poem just master this difficult literary form. Even if I lack worldly sophistication and I may be a bumpkin at times, my spirit wants to transcend the material world with something almost as great as The Divine Comedy. I hope to surpass all of those impossibly harsh critics who can only tear others down but can’t produce something like this themselves.
Someone may look “cultured,” read theory and know all the intellectual signals and aesthetics, but that doesn’t mean they have a compelling visionary inner world or the ability to create myths that speak to the collective unconscious. Someone who dissects symbolism and only critiques it in a clinical manner isn’t always smarter than someone who embodies symbolism and leads with their abstract intuition.
I won’t allow anybody to hold me back anymore.