A friend recently said this to me and as obvious as it might seem to some, it was exceedingly striking to me.
I am a very goal oriented person. Sometimes the process is part of that goal, but too often it is a hurdle to get over. Traveling is a super obvious example. I actually have a lot of fondness for car trips, but I really just want to be there already. The same applies to many aspects of my life.
Because of this mentality I have instead been trying to to embrace the process and that means embracing a lot of mess and a lot of failure.
On a recent car trip I was listening to a podcast that was talking about raising perfectionist, and how to avoid that. It is really important to praise someone's process. Not so helpful to only praise the result. It was a little bit terrifying hearing the woman talk about the best way to talk to kids. I'm now petrified of saying the wrong thing. I have to reprogram my entire reaction to things to avoid screwing up the little people, and indeed the adults, in my life.
It's important to see and share the steps of a journey. Even the ugly ones. I don't mean that we should be airing our dirty laundry. I don't think that's useful either, but an example is a before and after photo of a house. People like seeing the steps. They like to see how it went from one thing to another. Because otherwise we're looking at some magic and we only see that someone got from point a to point b but we don't know how. "One thing led to another." Um, okay. How and why did one thing lead to another?
I have recently been saying a lot that I am embracing imperfection. Failure IS an option. But that isn't the goal. The goal is important too! I'm not saying go in to something with the intention of it failing. But just letting life continue if you do fail. I'm not saying that we should not aim for perfection or the ideal. Especially in our spiritual life it is important that we are trying and trying hard. But also being kind to ourselves and others when we aren't perfect. The Lord looks at us with infinite mercy. He wants us to succeed, and He gives us infinite encouragement and help. But He does not turn His back on us when we are not perfect. He is always giving us hope and a way back.
When I travel by car or by plane I just want to be there already. I would love to be able to apparate and skip the traveling part. That is true of some skills too. I would love to skip the learning process of ukulele. It's slow and I feel like a beginner all the time, even though I have been playing for over a year.
But with painting, I don't want to skip the process. If I skipped the process and just had finished paintings around my room I wouldn't care about them. But when I paint something I see the process as I go. I take a picture and I post a half finished painting to embrace the process and to know that I created something because I put in the effort. And I will continue to put in the effort and make it better. Painting is a process that I love even though it is never perfect. And it's only one of the many things that makes me happy. Life is more than one thing. It has to be.
This is great, Alison! Permit me to ramble back, in my imperfect way!
ReplyDeletePerfectionism has frozen me many times, keeping me from getting both chores and creative projects done. Then someone tweaked a motto for me, and I'm so much more free: "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly!" ie, just do something. Look at what I've produced, that first bad draft or crummy drawing, and do it again. Let myself do something gradually....
Another thought that your essay is prompting: Max and I made many trips driving between SW Ohio and Bryn Athyn. When we were first married, Max used to go into a zombie-like, grouchy mode for the whole drive, just wanting to BE at our destination. Gradually, he has come to an acceptance of the time spent - that it is still our life! that real and good things are happening during those 10 hours! that we still love each other, and can even do good in the world, on the PA Turnpike and I-70!
Thank you for writing!
J.
I love this and YOU! I wish I lived in the same town still so we could have tea more often and visit. You help me a lot with your posts and thoughts. <3
ReplyDeleteNice. Lots to think about here. Two of the processes I love the most are mixing music and doing character work. I've definitely never perfectly mixed a song or perfectly acted a role, but I can at least perfect it to the point where I don't know how else to make it better, so that, plus continually learning new ways to make it better, are my goals. It's a good thing my knowledge is so limited, because I love the process so much, that if I knew how to make a song better to eternity, I would probably do it, and so it would never serve a use, because no one would ever hear it. It also occurs to me how those labors of love, the weeks of focused intention into a song, or the months of focused intention into a character, package up all that intention and love into a form that people can consume it in a concentrated form, whether a 3 minute song or a 2 hour play (or a painting, etc). It's just an amazing process, and amazing how the Lord provides the love -- and the limitations -- necessary to drive the process.
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