education, training and achievement in the workplace

having heard and spoken much about 'getting something out of your work experience', and with the experience of having so many of my ideas systematically distilled almost beyond recognition, perhaps the time is nigh to put pen to paper and record a few thoughts on the subject, if not for anything other than posterity.

If we are not able to achieve what we desire, if we are not able to accomplish what we set out to achieve, if we are not able to even begin to make those baby steps toward accomplishment, what do we have as creatives? as productive human beings?

Just as we must attempt to make everything we touch the best we can make it (given the circumstances); we must to attempt to make something out of everything - to take every project within reason and ensure that the best ideas that come out of the project are seen to their logical and intended conclusion. This task should be undertaken even if it means distilling the final product back to first principles or original concepts, and then building those original ideas into what they should be - into the design that would creatively and logically arise, were the ideas to 'run their course'.

This task should be undertaken even if it means taking those original ideas and developing them entirely on our own time, entirely with our own resources, entirely by ourselves. Only this way shall we ever achieve our original vision. Only this way shall we ever grow as creatives. Only this way shall we ever progress beyond the confines in which we find ourselves.