What if we didn’t celebrate the wins?

I’ve never been fond of celebrating too much, I could never understand why.
Winning felt artificial because I knew it wasn’t sustainable.

Life is full of high and low tides.
When I was younger and was met with any wins and celebrated them like there was no tomorrow, when tomorrow came I’d feel this emptiness and feeling of what’s next.
Then when I’d be faced with an obstacle or loss in my head, the contrast between that celebrated win and where I felt at the loss was exaggerated.
A way I found to counteract it was through team sports and team projects, as the weight isn’t all on you, or by not celebrating the wins too much and just carrying on with what needed to be done in my work.
This meant that when a loss came along, I took it as something to learn from, and also the contrast from how a win felt wasn’t as big so it didn’t consume me entirely.
Maybe this doesn’t work for everyone, but it is a way I found to battle the consistent ups and downs life is guaranteed to throw at you. I am grateful for any win that comes my way but I avoid the desire for it to get to my head.

Winning alone would be boring anyway.
And realized that I didn’t have to give into my introverted nature and go at this alone, also it physically isn’t possible.
I needed to find a tribe.
A group of people, like-minded people, that I could work with along the messy process of creating art.

As Bobby Hundreds said
“A rising tide lifts all boats”

Note to my 17-year-old self:

When you feel like you’re drowning deep out at sea and suffocated by a low tide, just remember you’ve made it back to shore before.