I used to go with our son to an art kindergarten. Every day – the children did some art work there, which were then hung on the wall at the exit. Like in a real gallery.
Each work was framed and carefully signed.
Parents, when picking up their children, looked with great interest for the works of their little artists. Then they all went home together happily.
The little ones held their drawings in their hands, which in these frames were the truest works of art.
Watching what happened there every day before my eyes was one of the most important things I learned in my life.
I was an adult, but I was ashamed of often.
For I understood how many things I had started – and did not finish. How many projects have I withdrawn prematurely – and I was one step away from success. How much time and energy I devoted to things – and then, as if nothing had happened, I stopped them suddenly … left. Sometimes I also changed jobs. I fidgeted unnecessarily, like a restless spirit – instead of focusing well on one.
I was impatient – like these little ones.
– But what did you really learn in this kindergarten? – you ask me now.
Well – I learned that my work should be given a certain shape, a certain compact and closed whole. Even if it’s not entirely successful. Even if we would like to break it and abandon it.
I happened to be in this kindergarten a few times earlier and saw children who were still working. An experienced kindergarten teacher encouraged the little ones to try a little more – to put a few more lines – AND GIVE THEIR WORK A FINAL SHAPE.
The little ones were impatient – as are the little ones (and not only). They really wanted to do something else. Their teacher – with a warm, gentle voice, motivated them to try a little more. And then we just frame it and the parents will come. They will be delighted.
The easier it is to stop work when we see that we are failing.
Meanwhile, this work also made sense. It was our life time. It was learning. It is worth giving it its final shape.
I started to apply these conclusions to different areas of my life – and it changed me a lot. As an engineer, as a drawer, as an author.
Sometimes I go back to my not very successful works, but I am happy to say that at least I finished them and learned something from them. It was not a waste of time.
Interestingly, as a very adult person, I also returned to my drawings.
I used to just throw them in the trash. I threw out a few hundred of them if I didn’t like something about them.
But then I started to study them, to take pictures of some fragments. Learn, draw conclusions. I was hanging these works on the wall and sitting in front of them in the twilight of the evening – … I was shaping them.