Why I went Non-Professional

Why I went Non-Professional

By Ian Su

Based On a True Story.

I feel like the only thing I ever do in life is start over. Writing, for instance. The fingers that fly over my keyboard will eventually, guaranteed, find its way to the backspace key and hit it until I come back to a blank page.  Back in October 2019, I happened to be on a 22 hour flight from New York to Singapore, and I had a lot of time to think. I ended up pondering about this one thought- Why was I always hitting a dead end, forcing myself to spin around and turn back where I started? Back to square one.  In my drawer back at home in NYC, I had unsuccessful projects aplenty. Blog posts where I ‘taught’ writing, illustration, etc. Art or comic book projects I tried to finish, but all gave up on because self-doubt crept in before it succeeded.  A month had passed. I was still thinking about this one thought. The one thing I had ever succeeded in was my drawing and illustration videos I posted on YouTube, which had surpassed more than 200 episodes as of then. But even then, things were changing on YouTube, and all the creators were taking a hard hit with some monetization issues they would have to face, plus harder reach to audiences. I started to wonder whether my one successful project would also bounce me back to where I started.  How was it that so many people could finish such large-scale projects and still succeed without that self-doubt creeping in?  ​ ​ ​

​ ​ ​ I ended up realizing that the reason that I would always start over was because I was a perfectionist. Someone who would always pick apart my own projects without knowing. I would always look at my own projects and criticize them, seeing what went wrong.  I was trying to become a professional that I wasn’t.  So, at a hotel in upstate New York, I sat down and restarted. I began a new project, using a lot of my old recycled material- interviews, blog posts, and whatnot. A website called Non-Professional.  Because that’s what I was. I wasn’t the CEO of a massive company. I was a blogger who didn’t teach, but shared. I don’t qualify myself to be a teacher. I just share my own experiences.  Non-Professional didn’t just change my perspective on blogging, but also on everything else. I realised that my comic books weren’t working because I was striving to be a professional. When I worked, I was setting myself up for failure. And when I failed, I would beat myself up for it. Let it get in my head.  ​ Striving to be a pro will get you to failure. But at the same time, every failure is a stepping stone to something better. 

Trying to perfect everything you do will waste your time. And that’s why I’m a Non-Professional. It’s not a title. It’s not an award. I’m not perfect at it. But it’s a mindset, something I’m working on. It’s not easy, but it’s important. A view on your work that when you do whatever it is you do, it doesn’t have to be perfect. The passion inside of you will balance that out.  And passion is something far more important than perfection. ​ Ian Su | Non-Professional Blog: https://thenonprofessional.weebly.com/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/nonprofessional Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notreallyprofessional/ ​