I’ve just been reading an article about Cesa Milton in the FT, which you can find at FT.com and then search via the First Person Column and it will appear.
She had been “drifting along, doing secretarial jobs and bringing up children while all the time I was thinking, “I wish I could paint but I can’t.”
Then she realised this, “[it] simply meant I couldn’t paint like a great painter. But I could easily paint like me: really badly.”
So she just got going, “So I began”. And she painted through doubt, “And if I had any negative thoughts, I just painted more and worse”
Which she found liberating, not restricting,
“That was wonderful. It disengaged my critical faculties and gave me permission to start.”
Which has affected her life ever since,
“And now I’m not critical of anything I do. Ever.”
What would you do if you weren’t so critical about yourself?
It’s an importation question when we are mothers and workers and people with responsibility, and people who spend far too much time tidying up, and not doing important things. Like learning to live.
So what would you do? And then you need to go and do it.
