Did you ever?

Did you ever create something and then have it kind of sit there? As a writer, I write all the time, but every once in a while I write something that just doesn’t come out the way I want, and I can’t figure out what I need to do to fix it. There is, in fact, nothing more frustrating than creating something that comes so close to being what you mean to bring into being and having it fall short.

As someone who has a degree in Fine Arts, I have had a lot of experience with things not turning out the way I wish they would have. I have drawn things that I wanted to shred, sewn things I didn’t even want to use as a dust rag, woven things that I wouldn’t show someone if you paid me, beaded things that were so amateurish looking that I couldn’t bear to even take them off the loom. I have, over the years, created many things I would rather have burned than share with people.

Why do we, as flawed humans, feel like everything has to be perfect all the time? What is it that causes us to have those moments when we feel so imperfect that we feel like we have made a huge mistake or failed at something? When children fail, we tell them to try again. We comfort them with the idea that you fail because you are learning. What happens that the kind of cheerleading we do for children, ends? Why do we find it absolutely acceptable that at some point we stop granting ourselves grace to be a miserable failure at something? At what age are we supposed to stop needing to try, and just be perfect every time?

To be honest, I am fairly certain that I fail almost as often as I succeed. Partly because I try so many new things, but also partly because I don’t believe that failing is the worst thing that can happen to you. Maybe it is because I have spent the last two-and-a-half decades around children and have seen the impact of people’s negating someone’s effort because it doesn’t immediately lead to perfection. I’ve watched the light go out in their eyes when someone is sarcastic or thoughtless and says something hurtful or embarrassing about their efforts. I’ve also watched them turn inward and stop sharing their ideas and their thoughts because they don’t want to set themselves up for snide comments or feel like they are a target.

Why do we do that to others? Why do we do that to ourselves? What makes it seem ok to purposely set someone up to feel bad? What is it that we have lost sight of? Or were we always this way and there were just fewer people you interacted with on any given day, so it felt less intrusive? All I know is that I fail. In fact, I fail spectacularly on a regular basis.

Why bring it up? Because I didn’t feel like my brownie obsession was as good as I wanted it to be. To me, it didn’t convey what I was thinking. It felt forced. Was it awful? No. Was it what I had imagined? Also no. And that’s ok. It’s ok to fail to achieve your goal. It’s ok to be imperfect. Will I do better next time? Yes, probably. I learned a lot as I struggled through my brownie obsession post. Will it be perfect? Probably not, because I am a flawed human being. And that’s ok too.