Colin Harman

Often times I’ve felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. We each have our own personalities and demeanor that make us very different from the person next to us. I believe these this unique and individual differences naturally shapes our own specific point of view and perspective on things, on our lives.So why do some of us seem to be able to fit or squeeze into that round hole better than others? I wish I knew the answer of that question, I really do.

I often feel I don’t fit in well. Not just because of my excessive stature, but just my place in life. I long for forward thinking, for trying what seems scary, for change not for the sake of change,but for calculated risks in the name of progress. However, more often than not people just like things they way they are. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, a lot of things just work the way they are. But many things are needing to be in a constant state of improvement to maintain relevance. The design and creative world is ever changing, and I think the fact that it’s never done, over, or completed is a huge portion of why I love it. It’s ongoing, it’s a lifestyle. I love to live in the ever-changing waters of progress and innovation, and it’s hard to explain that mindset to someone who is content with ‘what is’ let alone try to introduce them to that world (often kicking and screaming).

So where is the balance? Where is there space for ‘the repetitive same’ and a state of constant innovation? I think this is where I find myself in a constant state of quandary. Half my job is to come up with “solutions” and the other half of my job is to never allow for a boring mundane routine. The constant tension to be managed is wading through which principle applies to which project, and discovering what is most important given all the variables.

I don’t have the answers, but I think I’m learning what questions to ask. Sometimes being the one who wants to sojourn ahead means you’re out there alone while everyone else waits to see if you succeed or fail, but is living a life only trying to avoid failure really a life at all? Experiments, risk, and exploration of this incredible world God has given to us is the essence of who we are. We are here to explore what God has shown us, to ultimately discover His incredible creativity that he allows us to experience which ultimately brings Him the highest glory.

I don’t mind being the scapegoat, or the one who gets hung out to dry once failure has reared it’s ugly head. I’m not saying it’s easy, but if I can give someone the gift of going second and teach them what I’ve been able to learn along the way, I’m in. I guess that’s where the feeling of not fitting in comes in. I don’t know how to help people see the vision that I see, and communicate the value that I can see in the future, I’m willing to carry the torch ahead, but it’s tough when you feel like no one cares to acknowledge the fact that they could benefit from your desire for progress. In some cases I’ve had some become annoyed, mad, and have told me to just be quiet and content with what is.

I know God has a place and role for me, and I think finding what that place is may depend on me first acknowledging where my role isn’t. Scaling back, simplifying, and focusing on what I can truly contribute to in an effective way for His glory an not my own and not try to contribute to too much. Boundaries.

Maybe then I’ll find my true place, but I trust God for where I am now and continually learning what He has for me as I take each step.

If you would have told me back when I was growing up and foreseeing my future in all it’s utopian potential that I would be living in a semi-small town in Central Virginia call Lynchburg, I would have had to laugh in your seemingly lying, time-traveling, future-knowing face. Alas, here I am and have been for going on seven years now (that’s one year in dog years).

I don’t think I would have ever chosen this place, but the people I have met and come to love, the experiences and sights, and the space to explore the person God has created me to be has been invaluable. I got my education here and assumed I’d be leaving post-haste upon graduation, and yet God had other plans and I’ve been working full-time at Blue Ridge Community Church for almost 3 years. It’s been a wild ride, living in many different places with a plethora of roommates, road trips to here or there, a handful of jobs, but somehow in all of it there is purpose. There is a plan for me.

I have spent time on the internet researching other areas like New York City, Austin, Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and so on. In doing so I’ve tried to peer into what God may have ahead for me, trying to look around the proverbial corner. I at time covet the creative communities like NYC and Austin. I read on twitter about the meetups with fellow creatives, cowork spaces, big design firms doing incredible work, the never ending lists of arts shows and galleries to explore, and yet here I am in Lynchburg, Virginia all the way from California. Here I am.

Am I missing out? Am I just treading water when I could be climbing to the diving board? Did I settle? Did I miss my true calling? Am I wasting my life and slowly becoming irrelevant in a non-stimulating town? Questions like this could flood my mind, if I didn’t have this one thing: peace from God. Call it what you want, but I know that for right now I am here for some purpose, and whether or not I know what that is or not doesn’t matter, because here I am. And for what it’s worth, I want to make the most of it while I’m here. This doesn’t mean I’m stuck, it just reminds me that though the grass may seem greener on the other side, there’s more I can do to water, nurture, prune, and better the grass I have between my toes right here where I am.

I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t where I am now, but I hope I can look back on “here” someday and say I am not the person I was then. I want to always be growing, not just getting better at doing the same thing over and over again, but growing. Moving ahead, failing at times, taking risks, putting it all on the line, but being able to look back and say I did my best for a purpose bigger than just me.

I could make the excuses that I’m not stimulated here or that I am not going to reach the potential of being the designer and creative that I hope to be in a place like this, because I don’t have the right people to push me, or I am not always surrounded by creative people that ‘get’ me. That’s crap. All that is just excuses. Anything worth doing takes effort, and nothing is entitled to me. I have to chase down the dream and have passion. I can’t wait, so I won’t. Starting now.

I will make the most of everyday, create, and press forward. I will fight through resistance that will always do everything in it’s power to restrain us all from moving forward in life. Let’s do this.

Failing always sucks. I can’t think of a time when I would choose personal failure over success. However, I need to fail in life, and I need to do it often. I realize that sometimes even when I know I’m not good at something I still need to push through my failures in order to learn how to succeed. What if Picaso quit every time he messed up? Or what if Thomas Edison quit after his first failed lightbulb attempt? He didn’t and he eventually succeeded through what he learned from his thousands of failures.

In a creative profession it would seem that failure is not tolerated, yet we are expected to always outdo ourselves. How then are we to learn by only creating for the purpose of work? Well, we won’t. We will simply keep pulling from the same safe and tried-and-true bag of tricks we know because we know they have worked in the past. I suppose Edison could have just kept using candles but he pursued his goal in spite of frustration and failure.

Trying something new in a project is dangerous; a lesson I’ve learned the hard way. I am learning the value of experimenting and often failing outside of work, in order to be continually growing as a designer at work without losing my job.

This doesn’t just apply to design work though, any profession should always be progressing and improving. Hitting a plateau should be your worst nightmare in everything you do. The fear of becoming irrelevant terrifies me. If you are the same person, friend, brother, leader, or whatever that you were a year ago or even a month ago, shame on you. Shame on me for the times I have let complacency win.

It doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of effort, discipline, and sacrifice, but I challenge you: Grow, do, create, fail, improve, learn from it, and be better everyday. Strive for more, strive for greater, be more excellent than you are. Learn from your failed attempts, because they equip you for successes. Let’s do this together. Go.

I wear a lot of hats at my job. And while at times it can be somewhat overwhelming, it is truly a privilege to be able to do what I do. It is sometimes easy to lose sight of what is most important when you are in the daily grind of work, especially in “ministry”. Things become mundane or routine and the monotony of maintenance can definitely skew priorities if not proactively managed.

A place riddled with unmotivated and defunct attitude toward the concept of work is absent of vision. Vision that gives meaning and purpose to why you are putting in the effort toward the greater cause. Effort and work are essentially the same thing, but the former has purpose, where the latter is no more than a means to achieve status quo. We as people, as living, breathing, feeling humans, love to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Knowing we have a chance to be a spoke in the wheel of something that has purpose and a goal emits a virally contagious energy. Yet, often we miss that part, we just see the goal, the product, but not the “why”.

However, the “why” is what what matters most, people will go above and beyond for something they believe in, and yet that is often poorly communicated. For myself, I have to constantly remind myself of the reason that I do what I do, because when it comes down to it, on a core level, I just make things prettier, or simpler, or less confusing. What good does that really do though?

If it was just me that’s all it would be, but God in some miraculous inexplicable way takes the inadequacy that I have to offer and uses it to draw people to Him. And on a day to day for me, He allows me to help people have to do less of the logistics of ministry (or at least do it more effectively and efficiently), so that they can do actual ministry in the lives of others. Now that is the vision that keeps me going.I get to be a part of helping others help others.

That is how God uses my abilities, my passions, my skills. It’s all from Him, and for Him. I need that reminder everyday. That I am called not to do the same thing over and over again (thus slowly fading into irrelevance) but to continually seek ways to allow other people to more effectively interact with other people. For me that isn’t work, it’s a vision that I can pour my efforts into, furthering the continual progress God has called me to.

Many times the concept of movement is confused with progress. Something can be continually moving or in motion, but it takes a lot more effort, risk, and passion to have something that is continually progressing for the better.

“Movement” is defined as:
The act of changing physical location or position or the general activity or bustle of people or things in a particular place.

“Progress” is defined as:
Forward or onward movement toward a destination. The advance or development toward a better, more complete, or more modern condition.

Though seemingly similar, there is a difference. Movement is just that, movement. You can “move in a circle” you can even “move backwards”. Movement does not necessarily constitute forward motion of any kind, and thus can be confused with actual progress in a direction. Progress on the other hand has a goal in mind, a destination, a focus. Progress is not flippant repeated circular movement doing the same thing over and over again. Progress requires constant learning, refining, and a consistent path towards the completion of a goal.

Movement could be illustrated as drawing a circle on a page over and over again, or even the shuffling of a deck of cards. There is movement involved when drawing the circle, but really nothing is being communicated. Nothing is a new accomplishment once a circle has been made. It simply becomes repetitive. The same goes for the deck of cards—sure the cards are being shuffled and reorganized differently overtime, but it’s the same cards. Nothing new, no new risks, no new thoughts or tools, just the same things. All lacking progress.

Circles are not progress. A deck of cards will always be a deck of cards. They can require movement, but after they’re done once, are no longer progressing. I can see areas where I have experienced true progress and it’s incredible to look back and see how far you’ve been able to come and are that much closer to your end goal. In contrast, I have also seen movement mistaken for progress and I feel obliged to step in and help people. I want to see people be able to experience the thrill of creating something new rather than fooling themselves by drawing the same circle over and over again. I see potential in almost everything and love sharing it, but potential is only potential until it leads to progress, to betterment, to refinement, to improvement, even to achievement.

I am never satisfied with what is, because I always seem to see what could be. As soon as I get to what could be, I want to know what’s next. Movement is not progress. Do something better, something different that takes you to the next level.

Movement is over-hyped. Grow. Improve. Progress.