Growing Into More
August 11th, 2005 by Laura Moncur in MotivationThis is one of my biggest fears. I fear that if I stop, for even a moment, that I will be “retreating into less.” My problem is that I’m interested in so many things that I feel like I’m retreating no matter how much I do.
I’m writing regularly. That much is certain. But I haven’t painted with oils for a couple of years. I’m taking photographs regularly, but I haven’t sketched for a week or so. How can I ever get better at sketching if I only do it every couple of weeks? My crocheting has devolved into afghan-mode. I haven’t crocheted anything more complicated for a couple of years. The sweater that I crocheted bounced off the back of my bike unnoticed one day on the way to work about a month ago. I don’t even have proof that I could crochet a sweater.
If I spend time “growing into more” with one discipline, I feel like I’m “retreating into less” on another. I cannot do everything. I would love to think that I can, but I know that I can’t do everything. It just seems that life is a series of choosing where I will grow and where I will retreat.
August 16th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
I know this feeling a hundred fold. I always looked at it as though I was tending a garden. Each little plant takes a lot of soil, time, and care (nurturing). If I try to spread all those ingredients out amongst all my little plants, they take so very long, (longer than I may have to live) to bloom and bloosom from a seedling. I know I need to pick one or two in particular to nurture, so that I may actually harvest fruit from it while I’m still alive, but…. that is oh, so hard to do. When so much attention is put on that one plant, it’s growth pushes the others out of the soil. It’s hard to see those little seedlings wither and die, when deep down we know that we could of made something great from them.