Life is the art of drawing without an eraser
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Life is like drawing without an eraser. Isn’t that a great statement? I heard it on a Hallmark movie. I hadn’t heard it before. Maybe you have. Later in the movie, the statement was attributed to John W. Gardner so I just want to give proper credit.
My husband and I took a walk in the woods and on the way home he said, “Hey, I taped a movie for you.”
Anyway, I snuggled up in my electric blanket and watched my movie while the snow whirled outside. Drank some hot tea and ate the last two Anzac cookies. I mean, days don’t get much better than that, do they?
Then I heard that statement and thought, “Wow, I really like that.”
Worrying about mistakes
I mean it’s true, isn’t it?
Life would be well lived if we quit worrying about mistakes all the time. Certainly, we should make plans and certainly, we don’t want to live a life filled with mistakes, but wouldn’t it be great to be bold enough to sometimes put aside our qualms and get on with our lives?
I’m thinking about repainting some furniture. That’s not a major deal. But you’d be surprised how I’ve made it a big deal. I mean, I’ve already painted it once so what’s the big deal? I can paint it again.
I’ve done way too much of that in my life.
Have you?
Do-overs
I think most of us have. We think about, we ponder, we even might take the first steps, but then we think about failure and we back off. I wrote a lot about success and failure last week.
And, of course, it depends on the nature of the failure. Painting a piece of furniture and not liking how it turns out is very different than failure in a relationship, a job, etc.
I like to draw and paint in any form, whether it’s furniture, “stuff”, or an actual painting, as in art. I took lessons for a while. For one of the lessons, we were encouraged to draw with a pen, not a pencil. In other words, no way to erase it. Even now I give that a try because it reminds me that it’s OK if I screw up. Sometimes there are do-overs and sometimes there aren’t.
And aren’t screw-ups part of life?
In fact, some of my best paintings, art or otherwise, have been because I messed up royally. I mean it. It’s something about the process of messing up that gets me to where I want to end up.
So how’s about trying to do something today that you can’t erase? It can be as simple as you want. In fact, it probably should be something simple and not life-altering to start out. Life can be lived without an eraser and that’s ok.
God bless and have a great day.
