“I walked around in the world for a few years thinking,’This all happened so fast, I don’t know what I’m doing, and I have no legitimacy. I hadn’t gone to art school and hadn’t been doing art for very long. I had a lot of self-doubt about who I was and how I could identify myself as part of the art world.” Lisa Congdon, interview with Ryan & Tina Essmaker at The Great Discontent

I’ve struggled with this, too — this fear of not being a “real” fill-in-the-blank. What would it mean for me to become a “real” fill-in-the-blank? Would someone need to hand me a sheet of paper that said so? Would I have to have $x dollars in the bank? Would I need to speak at such-and-such conference to x amount of people? Would so-and-so need to endorse me? How many employees would I need to have? How big would my office need to be? How many years would I need to be doing this? How many people would I need to have visiting my website?

If that’s the case, I better start working on those things right now — legitimacy is a real need for any line of work. But wouldn’t it be easier if I could just decide?