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Stop Living in the Past! Step Forward Into the Future

If you had a chance to live out your high school days again, would you?


Recently, I've been watching Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines, which is basically a high school anime wherein the main character becomes a sort of pillar of support for several of these girls in his high school that get rejected by the guys they like.


As someone that watches a lot of high school romance dramas, or certain series wherein adults suddenly become young again and return to their high school years (such as Twinkling Watermelon, or the movie 18 Again), I occasionally think that going back to school might be fun.


I mean, what I wouldn't give, after all, to have less worries, less adulting, and less stress when it comes to life...


Not having to worry about what to eat, how to pay rent, or how to make money. It almost makes me incredibly envious of my cats, who just eat and sleep all day.



But then Something Happened that Made Me Reconsider


Recently, my eighth-grade son entered exam week. Now, in the past, I'd helped him study for his exams by creating a couple of exercises for him to practice on. And over the years, I had slowly been letting go.


Now, with him being in the eighth grade, I was hoping that I could completely let go of having to assist him when it came to his education. I'm not super fussy over grades, after all. What's more important for my wife and I is that he grows up to be a decent human being.


But then yesterday, he came to me and asked for my help in studying his math. And of course, his math just had to be algebra (my favorite… weeee...).


I mean, there's a reason why you're reading this instead of watching me solve math problems, right?


And so I glanced at his math book, flipped through a couple of pages, and honestly did my best to try to remember how to solve basic algebraic equations. I even watched a couple of YouTube videos just to refresh my memory!


And while I did get some of that knowledge back, I wasn't confident that I could help teach him anything. I even asked my wife for help. But, of course, since she wasn't any sort of math wiz either, we just ended up sharing a weak laugh together.


Eventually, we just threw our hands up and told our son. "We're sorry, kiddo. We really want to help you, but you might be on your own on this one. We don't remember much about this topic anymore."


He looked at us for a second, stone-faced, and serious, and then burst into laughter.


Then came the classic line every grown up must've said themselves at one point: "If you're not using this in your everyday life, then why do I have to study it?"



Keep Moving Forward


And so that little experience made me rethink ever wanting to live through high school yet again.


In fact, it made me think of the Japanese light novel that I'm currently reading, Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles, wherein this 20-something male dies and then gets reincarnated into another world with his memories intact.


Just thinking about how he has to go through school yet again, while dealing with the abuse and discrimination from his classmates, feels incredibly tiring.


Were there some things in my high school life that I wish I did differently? Sure.


But at the same time, making those mistakes and experiencing those setbacks and challenges helped me learn a lot of lessons. If ever I have any regrets about the past, all I can do now is keep moving forward, making sure to never repeat those mistakes ever again.



So Move Forward with Your Art


This is why, when it comes to our art or any personal project, sometimes the best thing to do is just finish it, ship it, and move on to the next one. It was Leonardo Da Vinci who once said that...


"Art is never finished, only abandoned."

Sometimes, when we're working on a novel, a play, painting, or symphony, we can fall into the trap of continuously working on it until it's "perfected".


However, perfectionism is sometimes a trap in and of itself. It doesn't always make a thing better. Sometimes, all it does is it keeps us stuck where we are, at a standstill, never progressing, never moving forward.


Artists and writers are often asked, "How do you know when a story is finished?"


And I think that there's no real or definitive answer to that question. Because truthfully, as Da Vinci stated, "Art is never finished, only abandoned." Sometimes, the reality of the creative process is that we just want to be done with a piece and start moving onto the next one.


So if you feel that you're stuck on any piece that you're working on right now, and that you're constantly trying to "perfect" it, consider the idea that it might never, ever be perfect.


Instead, step forward courageously, publish or ship that piece out, and then move on to the next one.

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