When I was a kid, I was told I could do anything I put my mind to. While that’s true in a way, I didn’t fully grasp the full implications and made the assumption that I would be successful at anything I put my mind to. See the subtle difference? If so, then you’re smarter than me, because I sure didn’t. I also had a pretty narrow definition of what success meant.
This started for me because an acquaintance on Bluesky is learning how to play the guitar. She was stoked to start lessons to fulfill this dream of hers. She’s only been taking lessons for a couple weeks and posted this morning about being frustrated with herself that she wasn’t able to make the chords she’s learning well yet and she said that she felt like giving up.
I commented a short version of my “Learning to Walk” motivational speech I used to give my students. It got me thinking about a phrase I wish I’d grown up hearing.
What you can do is worth doing.
I first heard this expression applied to persons with disabilities. Ironically (because of my Learning to Walk speech), it was from a person who uses a wheelchair that I learned this phrase. Because she said something along the lines of ‘No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I put my mind to it, I will not walk ever. But what I can do still matters.’
It absolutely does. And I thought then as I do now, how wonderful this phrase is.
Because if you’re just learning how to do something, you’re probably going to be “bad” at it. But that definition is probably based on a comparison with others who have more experience. Also, those others were probably “bad” at some point, because no one is born knowing how to do anything.
I was able to get Clean Freak published. Twice. But it wasn’t an immediate commercial success or even an eventual commercial success. Because of that, I considered myself a failure. It was the biggest hit to my self-esteem that put me off writing for ten years. That feels silly and immature to say, but it’s true.
Now that I’m getting back into writing, I am also feeling that same frustration that my Bluesky acquaintance expressed. Because, not only am I rusty as hell, I’m nagged by my inner critic, who says that I won’t be “successful,” according to his narrow definition.
But I wonder, if I had grown up hearing that what I can do is worth doing, would I have had a different mindset about all this?
Maybe. Hopefully, if I say it enough times, I’ll believe it.
The Chimerical Dark 