I’m still in that process. Well, I mean I am still learning, still
developing my skills.
Can you honestly say that you’ve covered everything on your
favorite subject of interest?
Well, I haven’t. And it’s totally fine. I love exploring, learning
new things (it also goes for domains I had no interference with before), trying
my limits.
I do not know – or maybe I have so many people to mention that I
must dedicate an entire article in their honor – what made me like this. But I
have always tried more, being curious, asking questions, and giving things a
try just to see the outcome.
Speaking of I don’t know… well, that cup I received from a former
student is always something that takes me back to my first ‘what ifs’, every
time I look at it.
I guess it's all a matter of skills. Developing some old skills and
acquiring new ones, that is. I never knew I had it in me to be a teacher. It's
just that it happened and I enjoyed it, being around children, teaching them,
playing with them (playing and learning, quoting here Ross on his childhood and
playing with dinosaurs figures), and having fun. It was a skill that brought me
to being a teacher, and so another one developed.
Years later, another skill brought me to the position of
proofreader, and here a couple of skills emerged. It was not seeing my name on
the cover of a book that made me think I want to be a writer; it was actually
that great feeling one gets when one creates something, and releases it and
sees afterwards that it brings joy and excitement to others.
A writer needs to know that what she/ he writes is read. Whether
it causes positive or negative reactions, it does not matter. The only fact
that the written word is read and gets a reaction is what makes the writer believe that the creative process was not in vain and keeps her/ him writing (although the advice is to write, to send it to be published, to forget about it being read or not, being appreciated or not, and to write some more).
I never knew I could
sew. I saw it all the time in my home, my mom was doing it, my sister was doing
it, even my father did it. I guess thread and needle were a thing back then. I
wonder how many of us still use the thread in order to sew a button on a shirt,
and not throw the shirt away and buy a new one (I guess that was the main
subject of a play called 'Should we wash the kid or do we make another one?!';
I wouldn't know, I've never seen it). I guess it all started with an old pair
of jeans that I could not afford to throw away. I made embroideries on it, and
so I started making DIY projects (which I had no idea they were called like that
back then). Afterwards, I started blogging, and one of them is dedicated to my
DIY projects.
The idea of this
article was not to brag about the wonderful skills I possess, though you might
be under that impression. I reckon that what I wanted to convey was the simple
message that we should not limit ourselves. Skills may be acquired, and perfection does not exist. Or if you're clinging to that, each project can be perfect and
thus it cannot be compared to others.
So take this gift of
time that we're given nowadays to think about your skills, about the things you once
wished you did but just never got quite around to doing it, about what you can
do, but most of it, about what you always thought you were incapable of doing
and give it a mere try.
