Tag Archives: growing

Are You Hard On Yourself?

06 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized, writing

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My mind plays tricks on me. There are times when I am dozing off to sleep that I will remember a sentence I wrote earlier and the errors in it will stand out like a blue shirt against a white background. “How could I make such a dumb mistake?” I will ask myself.

Because I have already hit the send button to an editor, to a journal or for one of my blogs, I will feel so stupid thinking that the whole world now knows my inadequacies, deficiencies and the gaps in my knowledge of perfect grammar.

During these times, I will get up and check what I have sent. Many times I didn’t make the error I was positive I made. (There are times though when I reread what I sent and am horrified that I didn’t pick up on stupid and simple mistakes).

I am so hard on myself during those times. I feel like I am an imposter who doesn’t deserve the title of writer. I say to myself, “If I can’t get the basics right, how can I consider myself a writer?”

For a while, the punishment I put myself through for making mistakes seems like it will overwhelm me and I will stop writing completely. But in the long run, it is the pressure, the feeling of being an imposter, the desire to call me a writer and feel it, the desire to write something both beautiful and without errors that keep me going to classes and workshops.

I know I am harder on myself than I need to be, but when the initial weight of criticism leaves me, it makes me do more to master the craft. I sign up for another class, I read another book, and I push and push.

I bet many of you are hard on yourselves, too. I find the process of learning new things uncomfortable but my desire to be better than I was a year ago, a month ago, last week, and yesterday keeps me looking for opportunities to learn.

Do you get past the criticism of yourself and look for new avenues to drive down that will lead you to places you thought might be impossible to visit?  If you do, in time we can walk to the door of some cool house and maybe even have the key to getting in.

 

 

Never Stop Learning

05 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in hope, writing

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

A group of our friends took us out for Sunday brunch to celebrate my husband’s and my birthdays (I am four days older than him). One of my friends ordered a Pickle Mary. When her drink came, there was a large (one of those big pickles you see for sale in quick stops) pickle sticking out of a very tall and thin glass. When I saw it, I wondered how the drink was going to stand upright.

As I was looking at the Pickle Mary, the server reached across me to place the drink in front of my friend. As I suspected, the drink was top heavy and the whole thing spilled on me. I was wearing a white hoodie that now had tomato juice all over the left sleeve and down the front. My legs were covered in alcohol and tomato juice, and I could feel the liquid seeping all over my chair and wetting my whole bum.

I got up from my seat and the server was of course scurrying around me and the table trying to clean up what little she could. She was red-faced and I assume she was mad at herself and embarrassed because of the accident. I said, “Wow. I am really really soaked, and my jacket is white.” I didn’t get angry. I didn’t scream. I didn’t throw any kind of fit.

I stood in the middle of the restaurant waiting for the people to clean my chair, the floor, the table, and one person was trying to wipe me down. I think I said it again, “I am soaked and I am wearing white.”

Although I didn’t get mad or say anything rude to anyone, I wish I would have handled the situation better. I wish I would have reached out to the server who spilled the drink on me and said, “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. What is a little tomato juice? Maybe it will be good for my skin.”

I know that it was an accident that the woman spilled the drink on me. I know that she was personally suffering in her own feelings about it and I didn’t use the opportunity to show kindness and compassion. I didn’t try to hurt her, but I didn’t help her either.

Much of what other people do to us is an accident, cutting us off in traffic, running their cart over the back of our feet in the grocery store, not seeing us and cutting in front of us in line, saying something that hurts our feelings. I want to be the kind of person that shows compassion, acceptance, cool-headedness, and thinks of the other person’s feelings, as well as, my own.

It seems there are always lessons to learn when I leave the house and venture out into the world. This time the lesson came in red – tomato juice and a server’s face. I wish that red would have been a cue to me to be as kind as possible. If there is a next time, and there surely will be, I’ll do better.

I’ve always said I am a lifelong learner, and that can mean more than always returning to the classroom. The world is a classroom too, and I am forever a student.