How does it make you feel?

If you have ever created a piece of music on paper, improvised, or performed in public, you might get a sudden rush of euphoria and pride. It's so easy to get the false feeling of accomplishment, and start thinking about your next project too optimistically.

I'm not talking about the optimist which is obviously necessary if we are to create anything worthwhile. Instead this is a blind belief in our capabilities without any grounding, without any reasoning.

It's actually pretending something which we are not.

​People like that go back to the hotel room after the first round of competition full of pride and start planning their next competition appearance. And of course they don't pass to the next round. Can you imagine their reaction to the jury's decision? They start blaming other people and pointing fingers.

​And how do I know this? I've been there and done that myself. We all do sometimes. It's human nature.

It's much more productive to stay oblivious both to success and to the failure and just do the work. Because we as artists have the rights to our labor but not to the fruit of our labor.

The feelings are irrelevant. What matter is commitment.