Encouragement
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqa2mVhFEOrLlsbYB3nVx3EbobQzYbjYF7qO6lC1IEY75_ehB3FxDahV968sRjXCck4coKqn2Io6v0ffwByBcnzVEF8_0aEHtHgwIV6JD1EnJmEOSxR_eDrYzi94MdnQyMp2YiL_JMY8ZV/s72-c/bubbles-.png
I've been a little sick this week (curses, hay fever!), but when I saw this passage from Anne Lamott (one of my heroes), it really resonated with me, and I wanted to share it immediately. Take a look...*****
There's a whole chapter on perfectionism in Bird by Bird, because it is the great enemy of the writer, and of life, our sweet messy beautiful screwed up human lives. It is the voice of the oppressor. It will keep you very scared and restless your entire life if you do not awaken, and fight back, and if you're an artist, it will destroy you....*****
...Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you're 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn't go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It's going to break your heart. Don't let this happen. Repent just means to change direction—and NOT to be said by someone who is waggling their forefinger at you. Repentance is a blessing. Pick a new direction, one you wouldn't mind ending up at, and aim for that. Shoot the moon.
Beautiful, right? We are too hard on ourselves. Read the full piece here, if you'd like.
P.S. An encouraging poem, and another hero: Tina Fey.
(Soap bubble photos by Norwegian photographer Odin Hole Standal)
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