My Cloud

Although the Year of the Ox doesn't officially start until February 12, I've been working on some of my personal goals.   I figured there's no sense in holding off if I'm feeling inspired.

One aspect of a personal goal involves me painting a cloud in water colour.  It's also, in my opinion, one of the most important pieces of this goal, so I really want to get it just right.

It is not going well.  

I can't figure out what about this is so difficult for me.  I have a concept in my mind...not even a concept...I know exactly what I want this to look like, but I can't seem to get this to translate onto the paper.  More and more versions just get added to my pile of drafts.  One, maybe 2, aren't completely terrible...but still don't quite fit my vision.  Some of them I look at and literally laugh because they are so far off my intent that it's comical.

Then I started thinking.....maybe I can apply the same process here that we do in Kung Fu when our outcome isn't what we expected.  Perhaps I need to work my way backwards to see what my actual intent here was.

Turns out my intent with pretty much every single one of these was "hurry up and get this done".  And that's basically a terrible attitude to have in anything you do.  The "instant results" attitude doesn't work.  It's about the journey....not the destination.

So moving forward I'm going to focus my efforts on my water colour skills.  I'm going to learn some more techniques.  I'm going to let go of some of the expectations I have...some of the pressures I'm putting on myself.  I'm going to play around and have some fun with it....enjoy the process.

My cloud will come.