2024 01 18
Car in front of house just outside Chicago, Illinois. November, 2023. © Clayton Hauck
Important Announcement: For the second annual year, our Personal Anthem is…
Stay Positive by The Hold Steady
In anticipation of *gestures broadly,* we feel the need to maintain our continual reminder that we, indeed, gotta stay positive. We’re getting older but have some things to be proud of. The kids are doing things differently but let’s be real, deep down they appreciate our contributions in years past and we can learn from how they are doing things differently. We acknowledge that sometimes we run short on options and go with the quick fix — we’re only human, after all.
To be candid: 2023 was the most challenging year of my professional career. Early on, I assigned myself this song to help see me through; a constant reminder that things ebb & flow and sustained success isn’t always a realistic outcome in life and esp. not in the world of commercial photography. In years past, I kept my overhead low and weathered the downtime by simply not paying any attention to it! Reading, travel, movies, etc all became my go-to time fillers and distractions. What changed is that last year my overhead ballooned dramatically as I had studio rent to pay each & every month no matter how few assignments were coming in. This directly led to me associating things like casual magazine reading, a healthy and important aspect of my life in years prior, as a harmful & lazy distraction in a never-ending quest to shovel more coal into the furnace to keep the train moving (make money, honey). I’m dramatizing a bit for effect, sure, but the sentiment is accurate and understanding is the first step toward recovery. Don’t forget to be kind to yourself!
You gotta stay positive — not by force but in your core perspective on living. Prisoners of war survive when they keep their mental state in balance and don’t slack on the little things, that, in context have no real value, such as shaving and keeping up appearances for themselves.
Stay positive,
-Clayton
