The Destination is Not The Destination

Obsessing with the destination takes focus away from what you need to focus on right now. - Philip Toshio Sudo

I took up stained glass a few years ago because I wanted to adopt an art practice with a beginning, middle, and end to the process. As a poet, songwriter and coach, my traditional practices seem to live in an ambiguous state of never really “ending”, and the final product is not a physical, tangible item (it’s been years since I published a poetry book, and will probably be a few more years before you can hold my poems in your hand). Of course I don’t believe that the product of our work has to be something we can physically hold onto, but it sure as hell sounds like a nice idea for the times when we need to experience a process coming to an end.

There are so many ways to pull a stained glass project together, but regardless of the methodology, there is a sense of a beginning, a long and sometimes tedious middle part, and a final product at the end of the journey. The process has been teaching me about myself, sometimes with force. Like a strict teacher, the glass cuts my fingers when I skip the step of sanding down the sharp edges. Gripping too hard on the cutter, my glass sheet will crack in the wrong areas, rendering shards of useless pieces. In haste, I’ll lazily cut pieces of glass only to replace them later down the road when the pieces around them can’t fit into the frame. Humbled, I am required to slow down, dedicate focus to each step without finding shortcuts, and surrender to the process.

I realize my haste is to see the end, to hold the final product in my hand and say, “I did that”. To feel proud of what I made. But that’s not the point anyway, is it? The point is in engaging with this process with the upmost focus, attention to detail, and willful learning from each mistake, to try again but better the next time. What I see at the end of the project is a body of work that required everything from me, at every step. That’s what looks good to me when I look at a finished stained glass piece, and because that looks so good, I can trust that if I keep my focus on perfecting the exact step I’m on right now, the end result is going to be amazing. Whatever it will be.

Learn more about my coaching programs, and how to create a collaborative support system that enables you to live your professional or artistic dream with ease and clarity! Click here to learn more.