As an artist, many times I mess up a stroke, get a line wrong, don’t get the right shape and don’t want to erase and do it again. Sometimes the progress so far isn’t even that bad, but you still don’t want to continue because it doesn’t feel right. Its often better to start over on a new page, your work turns out better in the end and you’re more satisfied.
As a writer, many times my introduction to a blog is just so bad that I leave it be for some other day, to come back to it and do it all over again, many times not even reading my previously written introduction again. You just tell yourself it isn’t clicking today, you’ll do it at a ‘better’ time. You can even change the topic of the blog you were initially and go from ‘I’ to ‘you’ within the same paragraph. It’s creative freedom, you have this headway.
On today’s math test, I couldn’t solve the first question on the first glance. So I just moved onto the next question, and then the next section and even finished the last question before coming back and even reading the first question properly, now not having enough time left over to finish it properly. But it’s alright, I at least answered the questions I knew, you’re allowed to do that in your exams.
In doing so, we frequently leave behind unfinished art works, unwritten stories and unanswered questions…unsolved mysteries, undefeated challenges and lingering doubts. Honestly, that’s ok. Nothing wrong with it. But the problem comes when we start doing the same with people.
Messed up a relationship? I’ll keep in mind not to repeat the same mistake again. Lost a friend? I’ll keep in mind not to trust the wrong kind again. I haven’t told my parents that I love them even once ever since I left middle school? I’ll just keep a more loving relationship with my own child and be more expressive.
In doing so, we leave behind broken things. Broken pieces of who we could’ve been. We leave them behind because starting new is often easier than starting over. But why do we really do this? The world is an exhibition of broken things, beauty can reside in them too. Some times its fear, sometimes it’s not wanting to accept that you may also be at fault, sometimes it’s just so that the life you’re living which you’ve rationalized to yourself after so much effort won’t collapse on you. We love change, as long as it is favorable and easy. We love change as long as its on our accords.
We justify it to ourselves saying that there are more chances, every day is a new beginning, every moment is a new opportunity. In doing so, we leave behind a notebook with 50 empty pages. But some day we all come to realize that our number of pages are limited…how many will we leave incomplete? Our Earth is spherical, keep running from a problem long enough and you’ll find yourself rushing right back into it.
Not every page has to be a masterpiece, not every stroke needs to be perfect.
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