I Owe It To Myself

This was the very first piece I made after leaving my job to pursue my art career. After years on the corporate hamster wheel, I was completely burned out and disenchanted.

Growing up in poverty had a profound impact on how I thought about security, how hard I worked, and the fear I had of "going back to the hood." For so much of my life, security felt tied to a job, a paycheck, and a lot of other things I didn't actually control.

I've always been a high achiever. That drive came from the shame of growing up poor. The disappointment of not being able to get the things you want. The idea that at any point, I could end up right back in the circumstances I grew up in. Those feelings got even more complicated because, whatever was driving my achievements, society universally praised the results. That praise played a big role in how I valued myself. Somewhere along the way, I internalized the message that my worth as a person was tied directly to what I produced, how much I earned, and how far up the ladder I climbed.

The drive to get out rewarded me with money and titles, but it always felt fleeting. When I made it out of Pittsburgh, started making six figures, and worked my way up to a position I wanted, I thought that would finally make me feel secure. Secure enough to stop chasing. Secure that I was finally someone worth valuing.

Instead, the more I made, the more I wanted. The more I accumulated, the bigger the need to hold on to it all. I always felt one promotion away from being valuable. In the end, it led me to emptiness and complete depletion.

Burnout was a feeling I knew well, but it always felt like a temporary trade-off for the bigger goal of more. Eventually I reached a point where I realized the "more" was never going to come from anything outside of myself. That was the lesson I had to learn: I am not a candle. I am not meant to burn out.

This piece will forever be a reminder to myself of that lesson.