Home

February 5, 2013

Beware of the “Big Moments”

7 Comments

[Diary entry, May 2008]

Though I star­ted doing my “Car­toons drawn on the back of busi­ness cards” in Decem­ber, 1997, it took me a few months to really get into it… as this photo from my old 1998 diary shows.

At first, I thought I should just do a few dozen of them for kicks and gig­gles, then move on to something else.

That I’d still be doing them 15 years later, didn’t even cross my tiny little mind.

But then it took on a life of its own. Its mea­ning, pur­pose and scope snow­ba­lled slowly over time.

The les­son here is, be care­ful of see­king out “The Big Moments” on pur­pose. Because when the big moments actually hap­pen, they don’t seem very big at the time (like the one in the May, 2008 diary entry above). And too many moments that seem big at the time, often end up going nowhere (“The Fai­led Super­bowl Ad Gra­ve­yard” is full of those).

Of course, the more you love your work, the less you need (or want) the “Big Moments” to sus­tain you. What you really end up nee­ding (and wanting)is just to wake up fresh every mor­ning, and get busy without a lot of fuss.

“Sim­ple. Easy. Happy. Boring.” Exactly.

[So far I’ve drawn over 10,000 of the busi­ness card car­toons. You can see the latest ones on my Tumblr page etc.]

Tags: Cartoons on the back of business cards, gapingvoid classics

7 Responses to “Beware of the “Big Moments””

1. Rob Tatman says:

   February 5, 2013 at 4:08 PM

   Hi Hugh,

   Great rea­ding this. Six months ago today I star­ted dra­wing a doodle every day as a 30 day cha­llenge. It didn’t cross my tiny little mind either!

   Thanks for ins­pi­ring me

   Rock on.

   Rob

   Reply
   • Hugh MacLeod says:

     February 5, 2013 at 4:18 PM

     Hey Rob… Yeah, that kinda is how it works

     Reply
2. My tiny little mind - Rob Tatman says:

   February 5, 2013 at 5:08 PM

   […] You know I’m a big fan of Hugh MacLeod: […]

   Reply
3. Kola says:

   February 5, 2013 at 7:16 PM

   this is GREAT advice, Hugh. Espe­cially the part about waking up fresh every mor­ning. Thanks for remin­ding us of what’s really important.

   Ran­dom story: so the other day, i mis­ta­kenly pic­ked up a book thin­king you wrote it. Didn’t take more than 5 words for me to rea­lize that i had the wrong Hugh on my hands (lite­rally) Lol

   Reply
4. Amolo says:

   February 7, 2013 at 3:41 AM

   I star­ted sketching and wri­ting silly things in my note­book three months ago and I am still at it. Thank you, I ll continue.

   Reply
5. Tanner says:

   February 7, 2013 at 2:28 PM

   This is some seriously smart, much-needed insight Hugh. It’s ama­zing how far we’ve come as a society (and spe­cies) that we have to cons­tantly be remin­ded of such sound — yet simple — advice.

   Reply
6. Jeremy says:

   February 12, 2013 at 9:58 AM

   This is spot on — thank you for such a poig­nant remin­der! I am defi­ni­tely going to share this one with my artist and crea­tive friends!

   Reply