Caution and creativity are two words that tend to live on opposite ends of the spectrum. There is a common myth that if you’re too cautious, you cannot be creative enough, and on the other hand, if you want to truly push the creative envelope, you must live with reckless abandon. This binary train of thought can actually disrupt the process of discovering your authentic voice within your work because fear is often pitted as the enemy. However, fear should just be seen as a subconscious caution signal you encounter on the road to discovering your next path.
Similarly, just like the striking yellow and black color combinations of street signs strategically mounted ahead of the traveler, we can easily notice when we’re approaching a point where our fears are wrapping around our thoughts, hindering our next moves. These feelings act as internal flags regulating if the moves we’re about to make are inherently meaningful to us as well as the speeds at which we’re willing to drive past fear to actually risk succeeding. From there, once we visualize the best or the worse that can happen, we can proceed with ease and freedom. What lies ahead is what we choose as a focus.
So the next time you are inundated with rapid thoughts, speeding back and forth, about to cause a traffic jam in your mind, close your eyes and picture a yellow traffic sign and observe how this affects the way you move through each twist and turn towards your goals.
Leather Jacket: The Arrivals /Top: Shae NY
Pants: Vintage/Shoes: Oriental Traffic
Photography by Amy Ezgi Silahtar