How to Live With a Creative Person Part 3: Appreciating Stubborness

     One of the most astounding and honorable features of many creative types is the ability to try and fail, and try again.  To some people, this could very well look a heck of a lot like stubbornness and be very annoying.  Others will see in them a most admirable form of resilience that that should be regarded with a deep appreciation for the ability to overcome endless rejection and failure.  The truth is, creative types are stubborn, and that is a good thing.  Creative and artistic people possess ideas that they feel a deep desire to share with the world.  It comes in many forms, from visual and performing arts, to writers and business entrepreneurs.  To hold true to any vision means to experience rejection and failure over and over again.  In the plainest terms, it means a general lack of any kind of instant gratification.  In a culture where instant gratification is often valued, stubbornness about pursuing an artistic endeavor or business idea, can seen pointless to some.  There is always an easier way. Always. If you live with a creative person, count your blessings, because this person, more than likely, possesses the very noble trait of resiliency.  It is the type of resiliency that allows writers to deal with countless rejections from publishing companies, performing artists to be turned down at auditions and still come back to try again, and  business entrepreneurs to fail at their ideas and still find a way to pursue their vision.  As a jewelry artist, this resilience is what gives me the ability to wake at the crack of dawn, pack my car, set up my tent display, return home with disappointing sales, and still bounce back and try again.  I include creative business types in this discussion because I am married to one.  Although my husband is not an artist, he an astounding ability to think outside the box to come up with ideas to connect with communities, and help grow organizations.  He has faced resistance as well at times, but has vision, and therefore resilience. It is a trait I deeply admire in him.. Whether you choose to call it resilience or stubbornness, I say, honor it, because it is an awesome quality .  It is what has given me the ability to learn things like bellydance and hoop dance.  I have awkwardly bumbled through learning my 3/4 shimmy and various hoop moves, and come out scratching my head when I try to teach people who only say "I can't do it".  So give thanks to your own stubborn mule.  Mules, after all, are pretty cool animals.