Seeing Value in the Creative Struggle

Francis Concepcion
Jul 10, 2017 · 4 min read

Once, while I was playing with my son in our backyard, I found myself staring at a pair of butterfly wings caught between the blades of grass at my feet.

As I stared at those clipped wings, a scene from Disney Pixar’s “A Bug’ Life” came to mind. You know that scene where Flick and the circus bugs try to escape the clutches of a hungry mother bird? Yes, that scene. There was a moment in that scene wherein Heimlich, the caterpillar, found himself stuck and unable to crawl back into one of the cracks in the ground. Heimlich wriggled and screamed as he tried to suck in the extra fat that kept him from retreating. And just as the bird was about to strike, Gypsy, the moth, used her wings to distract the bird and lead him away from Heimlich.

My interview with 2002 Eisner Nominee, Rod Espinosa, brought to mind the memory of those discarded wings. Mr. Espinosa said in my interview with him…

I used to struggle with professional jealousy.

When I was younger, I used to get angry at anyone who made a fortune while exerting as minimal an effort as they could. That really chapped my hide.

As I got older, I just thought: “Well, the card dealt to them is that they know how to make money easily and quickly using little effort, so why should I be mad?” Even at the hacks, at least they are making a good living being hacks! Who am I to judge anyone? He’s got a new Toyota, while us “authentic types” are starving. He has to be doing SOMETHING right. Right?

Now, there is just serene acceptance though I may rant about it on occasion still.”

I could see and understand his frustrations about how some people who did little to no effort somehow ended up higher on the ladder. In fact, I could safely say that, once upon a time, I stood in his shoes, angry and frustrated at the ones that had it easy, the ones that didn’t need to struggle as much.

And it took some time, and some reflection, for me to really see the value of my struggle with money.

It’s a somewhat timeless cliche, isn’t it, how one should never help a budding butterfly by splitting open its cocoon? Doing so disrupts the transformation and leaves the butterfly with wings that aren’t strong enough to carry it. In the end, the butterfly can no more fly than when it was still a caterpillar.

As this image of butterflies and wings played around in my head, I also remembered stories of how most lottery winners end up broke, or worse off than how they were before they won the lottery. Some of these winners even found themselves deep in debt after they’d spent all that money.

It made me think about how a sudden burst of success can actually be dangerous, if not competely terrible, when it comes to our overall journey to success. It’s because we’re not ready. We don’t know how to deal with money, let alone success in its entirety. Sometimes, the struggle is necessary becomes it keeps us grounded, keeps us humble and realistic.

Isn’t it any wonder, after all, how some rich and successful people are also actually incredibly thrifty and stingy when it comes to spending? Many of the rich (especially the ones that STAY rich) are usually careful when it comes to the way that they spend their money. And whenever they do spend thousands on luxury items, the money used for those items usually comes out of a surplus. In other words, they don’t usually spend more than their means. They’ve learned to manage their funds, and manage them well.

I believe that rather than be jealous about other people’s success, a better attitude would be, “What can I learn from their story? And how can I replicate that success for myself?” Because I believe that oftentimes, the reason that they’re able to earn a decent living without having to do insane amounts of work is mostly because they’ve learned to NOT equate money with time. Don’t work for money. Let money work for you.

This article is a reflection on part of my interview with 2002 Eisner Nominatee, Rod Espinosa. You can read his entire interview here. His comic, Adventure Finders, is free to read on Tapas. And for anyone interested in supporting him, feel free to drop by his Patreon page.

Written by

Editor for www.HawkersMag.com | Creator | Storyteller | Teacher | Healing the world, one story at a time.

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