When quitting is really about freedom from an obsession instead of failure.

I learned an important lesson this evening. That lesson is this: sometimes, it really is ok to quit.

Granted, it's socially acceptable if the thing in question that you are quitting is smoking, or alcoholism or some other life threatening addiction: these are encouraged and applauded. However, when it's quitting a project that is a hobby, it can been seen as lazy, and you have a lack of patience.

In my case the latter may be true.......... ok ok, it is true in 99% of all instances. I have little patience for stupidity, little patience when it comes to something I want and have to wait. I'm definitely a child of the instant gratification age. I had patience once as a kid, when I was sick a dozen times a year and all I could do was be in bed and suffer. Patience then is not a virtue but a gift given to you that you either accept or wallow in. Then, as if by magic, I grew out of my sickliness stage and my patience flew out the window on to another child who may have needed it more than I did.

Then I learned (for the umpteenth time in my life mind you) how to knit, and my creative passion was inspired and a glimmer of the patience I used to have came back to me. That was, until I met this pattern: The Barbara Scarf. It was one of over a hundred patterns I've downloaded over the last few months. Storing away for the right time to knit something fabulous. Granted, it's a testament to my lack of patience that after 2 days, and 3 attempts at knitting this horrid pattern (really, it's just the frustration talking... as I'm sure it's a lovely pattern, give me a few days) I quit. Yet, after guidance and assistance from my beloved grandmother, and all 3 attempts (which took 5+ hours each time) yielding a different looking scarf, I knew it was time to throw in the proverbial towel.

The very definition of insanity is: Doing something the same way time and time again, and expecting a different outcome. Well this time I was doing something different time and time again, and expecting the proper outcome, and for some reason I couldn't figure out which part of the pattern I was entirely screwing up. Was it the seed stitch? Was it the cables: which normally I am AWESOME at if I do say so myself, or was it a combination of all of it?

I knew that if I was going to get this right it would mean getting more experience under my belt, and walking away now before I was so frustrated I would just give it all up entirely. Alright, not entirely, I haven't freecycled my way into nearly 50 skeins of yarn sitting on our couch just to give up knitting entirely. After all the knitting accoutrement's G'ma has gifted me in the last month I would expect her to disown me for quitting the craft entirely.

It boils down to this, quit the damn pattern before I go insane- and try it again later. It will still be there, and later, after I get more projects under my belt, after I regain a little more patience, after I have a pow-wow with my grandmother in person I'll try again. And this is OK. I'm not a loser, I'm not lazy and overall I'm not a quitter in life. I just have enough to stress about that I don't need to turn what I love, and what frees me from the stresses of every day life into something else that irritates me during the day.

So to all of you out there who are creators of things, I say this: allow yourself to quit once in awhile because it truly is the most freeing and forgivable act you can do for yourself. We all put pressure on ourselves to be perfect, but when we realize that we were born perfect in as such that our imperfections make us who we are, we don't need to be so hard on ourselves to squeeze a square peg into a round hole.

On that note, I'm going to make my grandmother something else, something beautiful, and something I'm 99% sure I won't quit on in the next few days. When that project is complete, I'll know this was just a phase and a challenge I was not yet ready to master. Obsessing over the mistakes you make only discourages you from seeing the things you are (or can) do right and do well.

Move on, be free, and smile! <3

Q.

My Initiation Into Blogging

Welcome everyone! Welcome grandiose cosmos of the web and all the purveyors of random blogs. I welcome you to the mad ramblings of a woman who wants to put her mark on the world. Granted, we all want to put our mark on the world, right? Why else do we go out and get a job, look for a relationship, maybe have kids, maybe not, get a pet- just to make an indelible mark on the world around us. To know we matter, and have made a difference somewhere, a ripple in the pond of life. If we're lucky maybe that ripple extends out towards the nearest waterway and somehow makes it to the ocean. Wouldn't that be great if my little blog here somehow made an impact, got enough followers and made a mark on the ocean of people out there who want to read something funny, inspiring, thought-provoking and maybe something that makes a difference in the health and well being of their lives? 

How do I plan on doing that? Well, for one I am a woman on a mission. Not just any mission, and no not those spiritual missions most people make blogs about. Though hey, if I can get a little spiritual enlightenment from you, my readers, I'm all for it. My mission is to get everything in my head out of it, and out into the world so that I can make more room for learning. Learning what you ask? Anything! As a very dear mentor in my life says:"I'm a permanent student, always learning, because when you stop learning you die."

Things you might read about here are truly all over the map. I know that "The Dichotomy of Me" really lends to a thought of only 2 sides of me and my personality, but if there was such a word as Trichotomy or Multi-chotomy I would have used that instead. Who knows, people coin new phrases and words all the time, maybe I'll make Multi-chotomy mine. As my little "about me" states, I'm a married woman, a Certified Neuromuscular Therapist, a reader, a knitter, a lover of all things nature and animals. I'm a woman who was a part of the import tuner scene for many years, and while I may not be heavily into that now, I will always have a modified car. ;) I'm a risk-taker. I like to defy the odds and I like to feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins. I'm also what some people would call a granola eating, tree hugging, save the whales naturist. I want people to recycle, reduce and reuse. I would love it if people made more things than bought them from a big box store, and more than anything I just want to connect with people. If you can relate to anything I write here, then I've done my job. 

I hope you laugh, smile, and come away knowing something you didn't know after visiting this page. I plan to post things about my knitted masterpieces (hey a girl can dream), the work I do as a neuromuscular therapist and how that can help and benefit your life, the little things that irritate me, the ponderous things that make me wonder on the vastness and yet relatively small universe we live in. 

Cheers, and welcome to my life, my thoughts and hopefully my new friends: YOU!