The Gift of a Work in Progress

I took this one morning in Asheville, NC.  My husband and I took a ride to catch the sunrise in the mountains. 

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of a Work in Progress

“Embrace being a work in progress.  Life’s about progress, not perfection.”

Unknown

Do you ever give yourself an unnecessarily hard time?

“You’re not perfect!”  You tell yourself from time to time.

You struggle.  You dwell on situations that you could have handled better.

You go over the words in your head forever and ever. 

We are our own worst critic, or so it’s been said. 

We can be judge, jury and sentencing of life’s varying happenings. 

But what if we take a moment and reflect and really take time to see. 

We are a work in process not a picture of perfection for all to see. 

To know that we can make progress and not stagnate in place. 

This is a gift that is truly a concept to embrace. 

Embrace the work in progress, strive to be better each and every day. 

Even if that progress is not a measurable amount for your eyes to see. 

You have made the step to understand that perfection may never come to be. 

Progress means learning and understanding. 

Perfection may never be had.

Embrace the story, the new chapters and find ways to be glad. 

So run to progress and embrace the concept in all of its glory!

Today is mother’s day.  I will be honest, I let it slip off my radar completely.  When I think of the grand job of being a mother of six kids, I think, “Wow”... we made it.  There was never perfection, there will never be perfection but rather, chances for growth.  Each day is not a production, but rather an exercise in faithfulness and practice.  I hope that I have imparted that to my children.  There is no perfect mom, no perfect situation, but rather a chance to learn to be better. To pray more, to be more faithful in your path.  Much like playing an instrument it is all about discipline and practice. 

When you are playing a piece of written music there are notes on the page that the composer wrote with the intent of melody, harmony, theme, tempo, dynamics and many other musical terms.  When you begin a piece you have a little menu on the top left corner of the page.  This tells you the key that the piece will be played in, the beats per minute, the time signature and the dynamic (or how loud or soft the piece is played in).  That is just in the first measure before even playing the piece.  After that there is the Treble Clef (the top) and the Bass Clef (the bottom hand) with their respective chords and finger patterns that bring the piece together.  The key signature can change, the tempo can change at any given moment in the piece.  There is so much cause for absolute perfection.  In college when I studied piano, we were expected to practice a minimum of six hours a day.  Each block of measures was meticulously practiced over and over.  In fact, my professor had us practice a block of measures ten times a piece, if there was a mistake we had to start back over at one until we could reach ten times playing that particular passage perfectly.  It was a practice of absolute dedication and routine.  The first few times this practice was put into playing it was honestly one of the most frustrating times of playing the piano.  You see, I have played the piano since I was seven years old.  I was good enough right?  The amount of years that had added up were 14 on this instrument.  Perfection was achieved, right?  The answer was no.  As my professor taught our class even the most seasoned pianist or musician can indeed learn more even after playing the instrument for many, many years.  This brings to mind how many composers of music in the past spent hour upon hour listening to their pieces, fleshing them out, making them sound the beautiful pieces we know and love today?  Now that I have played the piano for 25 plus years the lens of time has lent itself to a great respect for the art and after you have practiced the piece over and over perfection may have been achieve technically on the piece but then you can bring your own artistic interpretation to breath individualistic life into what was written on paper hundreds of years ago.  So indeed, perfection is not what we should long for, but rather progress.  Progress means we are still learning.  Progress means that we are of the mindset that we can always bring a little more to the table of life, the universe and everything.  That young woman who sat in the practice room hour upon hour playing portions of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin over and over until she thought she would scream.  Now, she realizes that this progress was all part of the grand recipe of life.  Keep working, keep learning.  Keep making that progress.  You will not only enhance your inner self but you will be an example to others.  “Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be.”  C.S. Lewis.