When it stops being what you want it to be, everything starts to lose meaning.
When it’s been a long time since you celebrated it, it’s not worth it.
When you start a project with your head down and the feeling that what tells you it’s not going to go well is stronger than what says it will, that’s not a good path.
When others encourage you more than you do yourself.
When you look through a glass and say, “that’s not you,” and you see yourself in a mirror and say, “that’s not me,” it’s a painful “no.”
When you deceive yourself and think, “just a couple more games, just two,” you probably shouldn’t play them.
When you pick something up without strength, lacking enthusiasm, sighing, overwhelmed, anxious.
When you close your eyes and think there must have been a moment when you didn’t know how to prioritize or let go.
When you lose your excitement and strength. And you withdraw and curl up.
When your smile fades and turns into worry, sorrow, and fatigue.
When you confuse efficiency with shine.
And when your eyes no longer shine like they always have. And you see that others see that you see it.
When you trade the artisanal for the industrial, forget your inner craftsman, and stop working the material.
When you lose that killer instinct in the last minutes where everything is decided, the moment when the ball is hot, and you, who are used to playing that last ball, pass it to someone else and sideline yourself, thinking, “don’t let it come back to me.”
When you know that’s not your game. And you have to even consider if it’s your play.
When you assume that without desire, you won’t win.
When your restlessness is about not getting worse, not about getting better.
And you lose the power in which you have always lived.
When you see that you can’t find solace or refuge beyond doing “other things” and not these. And you’re neither in this nor in that.
And you forget to savor what’s in front of you.
When everything is urgent, nothing is.
When your worth is the skill of getting by with scarcity.
When it’s strange, odd, confusing, messed up.
When it doesn’t hurt the way things need to hurt.
When you don’t see yourself like that anymore.
When it doesn’t connect the dots.
When you polish something rough.
When there’s too much flourish.
When you long for too many things you’ve stopped doing.
When it rains more inside than outside. When it’s too reactive.
When you sell your time to the highest bidder and it takes it over as if it were worthless. And you know you don’t have much better than that.
When you prostitute your essence and existence.
When it was neat.
When you were right.
When you are there but you’re not.
And you realize your craft is closer to heresy than to the nobility you dreamed of. And you bruise yourself. And you end up being a specter of what you were.
When you spend weeks, months, years telling yourself this will be the last dance.
When the path decides for you.
When you dream of verses and universes and wake up having left none of that close.
When the alarm goes off and you don’t want to keep doing what you’ve been doing lately.
Because it doesn’t shine. It doesn’t explore.
When it doesn’t smell like your perfume, nor have you ground it with care, and it doesn’t taste like your roast, nor has it the cooking point you used to give it, nor is there a trace of your secret ingredient, nor have you cooked it thinking that every guest at the table is unique.
When it tastes like filler.
When the missing prize is to be you again.
When you look far away and smile, and then look close and your expression changes, it’s that this isn’t what you want to do, but that is. What are you waiting for? You’ve already decided.
There’s no trace of brilliance.
It doesn’t hurt to read.
You don’t write by hand.
“It’s not worth it.”
It doesn’t sow.
It’s not worth it. It doesn’t work. It’s nothing.
If it doesn’t carry your mark, if it doesn’t have your seal, if it doesn’t bear your imprint… it doesn’t take you to you.
When you stop learning, it’s utterly useless.
When the little one asks if you’re not going to play with him again today, you feel like a failure.
When you stop enjoying, you stop being.
When you stop enjoying, everything stops making sense.
By: Eduardo Prádanos | Madrid | Spain
I wrote this text listening to the album Orphée by Jóhann Jóhannsson.
You can read more articles by Eduardo at eduardopradanos.com and in Audiovisual Innovation.
Eduardo Prádanos is the founder and creative director of the agency FLUOR Lifestyle in Madrid, recently named Best Independent Innovation Agency in Spain (FICE ranking). He is also the director of the Postgraduate Program in Branded Content and Transmedia Storytelling and the founder of the Audiovisual Innovation Association. He teaches New Media at the International School of Film and TV in Cuba (EICTV) and co-directs the workshop “New Consumers, New Media, Transmedia Communication, and Digital Strategy” at EICTV, which gathers professionals from across Latin America for 15 days who want to learn how to tell a brand story effectively in the 21st century. He also teaches at various institutions and business schools in Spain and Latin America (IE Business School, ECAM, University of Lima…) and has lectured in Spain, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Cuba, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Brussels. He is also the author of the transmedia comic 100 Crises of a First-Time Dad and a member of Singular Solving, a company specialized in solving complex business decisions. He has worked with over 100 brands and participated in projects that have won more than 20 advertising creativity awards at national and international festivals (WINA, Laus, Inspirational, PromaxBDA…). He edits the blog eduardopradanos.com and on social media, he is @EduardoPradanos. Eduardo believes that together we can make our industry better and better.
