“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.”- Salvador Dali. I believe the words ‘impossible’ and ‘never’ were invented to weed out the people too afraid to contradict other people’s beliefs. I believe crafts can teach me life lessons to apply to everything I do.
My most memorable experience with this belief is the first time I painted rocks by myself. Painting rocks was one of my favorite childhood activities, so excitement collected and bubbled in my stomach, as my tiny 8-year-old hands gathered up all the needed supplies: my hand picked rock, red and green paints, brushes, and water. As I worked, I concentrated so hard to make my envision come to life. I was determined to make my triangle rock look like the watermelon dream inside my head. I could see what I wanted the end product to look like. Therefore, I thought that my project would come out looking exactly like it.
Finally, I was finished. I glowed with pride. I did it!!! My first time doing this craft by myself, and I had done it without any complications. I felt like my special rock couldn’t look any more like a watermelon. It was, in my eyes, perfect.
“What an adorable strawberry!” my mom exclaimed when I presented my creation to her.
“But it’s supposed to be a watermelon!” I pointed out, a little ticked off. How could she not see that? I wondered. To me, it was as obvious as anything.
This incident, especially, taught me a lot of life lessons. This is the hard way that I learned that creativity doesn’t translate well into reality. I also can’t get what I want. As long as I tried my hardest and even if it is not what I wanted, accept the outcome. Finally and unfortunately, people don’t always see what I see.
Imagine, I learned all of these lessons in a simple rock-painting craft. This didn’t turn out the way I want, but things don’t always do. Even though I was frustrated that it didn’t look as good as I thought it would, I’ve learned to accept this annoying truth because I tried to make my rock as perfect as I could. I can strive for perfection, but as Salvador Dali said, I will never reach it. I’ve learned to agree with this inconvenient fact, but not to the point where I don’t try. Telling me that I can’t do something, just makes me try all the harder.