As I stood over darkness, I lifted my gaze up into the stars and saw more than I could’ve ever imagined. What started with trembling then became confident, broad breaths taken in with the Canyon air. As my eyes exposed themselves to what I was actually seeing, a creeping fear lingered, reminding me that below the ledge that I was standing on is nothing but an abyss. An empty Canyon with a fall of who knows how many hundreds of thousands of feet. Why am I standing here. This is scary shit.
I keep my head up into the stars, for the longer I look the more I can see and more is revealed to me. As much as I hated standing on that ledge, the fear of falling off the deep end made me focus all of my attention on staying balanced. I’ve never felt as free or determined as I was at this moment. For some reason, this feeling felt all too familiar to me, although in this case one slip could easily result in some serious consequences.
I was brought up in a traditional Portuguese household believing that in order to make it in this world I’d need to follow a certain set of rules: go to college, work hard to get a stable 9-5 job, marry a Portuguese woman, buy a house and raise a family of my own, all before I turn 30. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with any of these things and my parents have every reason to want this for me especially coming from a background where the most important thing in their time was to work hard to provide for the family by putting food on the table.
As an only child, there’s always been high expectations and pressure on me to do something with my life and to make my family proud. My parents raised me to be a respectful and hard working man and for that I will always be grateful. What they probably didn’t see coming was all the talk of working in film from the time I was 10 was actually me being serious and only after I turned 21 and actually started making money did they begin to realize that the possibility of me making a living in this industry was possible.
When I finally made the decision to quit my full time job to pursue a career in cinematography, it was one of the scariest yet easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make. I knew that failure would come but I embraced the idea of learning the hard way by not going to film school and working my way in by simply being a hard worker and staying true to myself. People go their whole lives working a job that they don’t love for a boss that they don’t respect and still run the risk of losing everything. How could I possibly fail at doing something that I have so much love and passion for.
No matter what you do, failure will always be a factor and it’s one of the most important things needed to learn and grow. To choose a path solely based on fear of failure is one of the worst things you could possibly do to yourself in my opinion. My failures have made me who I am and have shaped me into the person I am today. Knowing that you WILL fail and understanding the consequences is vital to staying focused, determined and disciplined to keep pushing on and becoming who you were born to be.
Standing on that rock at the Grand Canyon and looking up at the stars reminded me that in order to achieve greatness you need to experience failure. Period. Making the jump to follow my dreams was the best decision I’ve ever made. It’s not only helped keep my creativity alive but it’s allowed me to have a voice of my own and turn inspiration into something that’ll hopefully inspire others.