Thinking Inside the Box

I recently saw this comic on 9gag. It's intended to be inspirational, and many commenters found it to be so.
"Totally blown away by this post," says one, "Haven't seen anything so inspiring in a long time. I'm not an artist, but I am a musician. I can quite easily relate to this."
I tend to disagree that a musician is not an artist, but that's neither here nor there. Another commenter writes:
"You can overcome anything if you believe in what you're doing, and if you believe in art, there surely are no borders at all."
This is a popular sentiment, and I can understand why. To some who have been successful, it must feel as though their determination paid off. They must look back at the road they have taken and conclude that it was the choice to continue following their dreams that lead them to success and happiness. But surely they cannot feel this way all the time. Surely they must sometimes look back upon things that they have not achieved despite their skill, hope, and drive. And are they correct in their assumption? For every man who has achieved his dream of becoming a professional artist, there are at two men with equal or greater talent who clean convenience stores for a living. If all it took to become a professional artist was faith in yourself and the courage to follow your dreams, then there would likely be no one grinding stumps or cleaning elevator shafts.

It's nice to think that anything is possible - that there are no borders, or that borders are illusions. At the risk of sounding heartless and pragmatic, it is actually more conducive to success to see our limitations and to have a realistic understanding of which we can push beyond and which are likely to constrain us despite our best efforts. A prudent person sees the borders and is honest about them. In the comic, a parent says: "It is very hard to make it as an artist, and talent isn't always enough. You need luck. You should consider other options, too." This is sound, rational advice, yet the comic tosses it aside. The artist urges us to draw outside the box, as if reason and critical thinking are as oppressive a barrier as The Berlin Wall. It makes an enemy, or at least an obstacle, out of good advice, promoting instead instead the belief that we must ignore anyone who says anything that does not play into our fantasy.

Encouragement is bad when it is overindulgent. Excessive admiration, especially when not balanced with realistic feedback, is misleading and may help to insulate a person against the reality of his or her own inadequacy. Some people who succeed will have less skill than you do. Some will have less drive. Some talented artists will toil forever in obscurity for one reason or another. If you aim for the moon, you may not necessarily land among the stars - you may fail utterly to even get off the ground. The bottom line is this:
Borders are real. Do not ignore them, do not be paralyzed by them. Wisdom and compassion are nobler goals than renown or financial success, and a wise person seeks first to learn which walls can be broken down or circumnavigated, which must be scaled, and which it would be a waste of time to attempt to bypass in the first place.