Pace yourself! Take breaks! Haste makes waste! Ration your time! You know, if you barrel through, you’ll spend extra time undoing all that you tried hurry up and push through.
And on Friday, that’s just what I did with the poor monk below. I kept working on him and ignored the little voice that said, take a break, go do those other things you have to do. I kept making mistakes and having to redo his face.
Over and over again.
Leave it for some time, and take a few minutes to disengage and reassess, and chill, the voice said.
Nope, I gritted my teeth and plowed through. I was determined to finish the project by the end of the day.
And I wanted my way.
So I kept going.
And kept messing it up, getting his face wrong.
He got the redo below probably 3 times. I’m sure there’s a lot of things in life to which we wish we could apply that same technique.
Soon it became obvious that I wasn’t going to finish the project.
And finally I got the point.
I let it all go. Said a few words to the good Lord. And went and made a cup of tea and chatted with some real live people. Took care of some chores and to-do’s. And came back.
Aaaah. Much better.
Then I tackled the friar yet again. Here’s what I came up with below:
He’s still a little raw, needs some refining, but I decided to leave him a lone for a while and focus elsewhere.
On a positive note, I loved how the sunlight caught in the fresh paint, and discovered that a Qtip makes an awesome painting tool.
And the slate-grey of the buildings made me feel like I was back at Glendalough again…I’m very grateful for those travels and all the people who made that trip possible!
So, the take aways:
- While it’s great to keep up a daily hobby, it’s easy to become consumed by not by the project, but by one’s own self will to complete the project. We human beings are meant to do things in small little steps.
- A giant snow man begins with one snowflake…so better ten minutes done well than ten hours being a bulldozer and ruining everything.
- In taking a break, sometimes you open the door for inspiration that wasn’t there before. And we learn to
Rarely are we superheroes who can do everything in one great swoop.
Unfortunately.
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#small habits #hobbies #atomichabits #catholic #fiat # willpower #refresh
Bridget Bryan 