Last Friday, I turned 43.
I went to watch Avatar 3.

It was an early morning show. The theatre was empty. No noise. No crowd energy. Just the screen and the quiet.

Fifteen years ago, I watched Avatar, 7 times in the cinema. I was already proficient in 3ds Max and Maya. I understood CG. But what I saw on that screen felt unreachable.

It wasn’t just beautiful.
It felt like a standard I did not yet meet.
On the flight to Vancouver Island in 2010, I carried a question with me that I never said out loud.
Was I good enough?

Not good enough for praise.
Not good enough for applause.
Just good enough to stand in that world and belong there.

I did not move countries for glamour. I moved to figure things out for myself.

What followed was not dramatic. It was years of quiet building.

I studied among incredibly talented people. I helped others with their shots because that was how I have always learned. Eventually I was asked to teach. Then I built curriculum. Then I refined it. Then I rebuilt it again.

Students came from different countries, different backgrounds, different levels of preparation. They trusted me with their time and their belief that this path could become a future.

Over fifteen years, I handed out over 200 diplomas in visual effects and compositing.

What mattered more than the number was what followed.

When credits rolled on films and television series, I began to see familiar names. Former students. Not once or twice. Consistently. Across major productions over the last decade and a half.

When Avatar: The Way of Water was released and I saw former students in the credits, something shifted quietly inside me.

Yesterday, watching Avatar 3, it settled.

In the quiet theatre, sitting by myself, I realised something simple.

I never asked anyone’s permission to do this.
I did not wait to be chosen.
I did not wait to be validated.
I did not wait for someone to tell me I belonged.
I just went ahead and did it.
For fifteen years.

That question, was I good enough, was never meant to be answered by the industry.

It was mine to resolve.
And I resolved it.

The world will always interpret your life from its own vantage point. From its own metrics. From its own limitations.

You do not have to accept that interpretation.
So was I good enough?

That is not a question I will let others answer for me.

Avatar 3 marks the end of that chapter that began on Dec 2009.

The question is, what’s next?