We All Need to Strive

May 2025

We All Need to Strive

“We humans have to have things to strive for.” This truism is of a fundamental human trait: the need for purpose and potential achievement.  It is most visible in professional ambition or personal development: this drive is also among serial crafters. We knit, crochet, stitch, sew, carve, sculpt, and make (with polymer clay!) not just occasionally, but constantly. Our homes overflow with projects in progress, materials collected, and finished pieces ready for gifting or even selling.  Those pieces represent striving to achieve our very best.

In my experience we are motivated not only by the joy of making, but also by the desire to progress, to perfect a technique, or master a new material, or complete a piece that has been sitting waiting to be completed.  Each project presents a goal but also a learning experience.   What is so engrossing is that the learning is endless and offers constant variety. What we attempt can be simple or it can be complex and invariably produces unexpected outcomes.   Our skill and our imagination give rise to constant challenges and lots of challenges.

In many ways, crafting offers a uniquely personal form of striving. Unlike structured workplace goals or achievements, crafting goals are self-defined and self-evaluated. A crafter may aim to make something new item to a deadline or learn a new skill when curious.    There is no external pressure. And yet the sense of progress is real and very satisfying. For those who sell at fairs or online, there’s an added dimension: striving not just to make, but to share and to be recognized.

Crafting provides a sense of identity. Many of us describe the experience as meditative and all engrossing offering stability in an unpredictable world. But even this calm does not ignore the ongoing drive to do better, to try more, and keep creating. In the absence of formal structure, the act of making becomes its own discipline that requires dedication and patience.

And it can be a social activity.  We have online groups, or we attend workshops (or for polymer clay the clay days) or share work on social media. These groups offer encouragement and feedback.  The striving becomes collective for other crafters inspire and challenge.

Serial crafting is a deeply human activity, not just because it results in handmade objects, but because it reflects an intrinsic human need: to move forward, to improve, and to express ourselves. It is a quiet affirmation of the truism that we must always have something to strive for. Through our continuous making, serial crafters demonstrate that striving does not have to be grand or public to be meaningful. Sometimes selling that one piece, or the appreciation of a gift is enough!