I’ve been thinking about pride a lot this week. Of course pride can be a good thing but I think I notice about myself that pride is a big part of my perfectionism and an excessive part of my make up. I wonder if as a child I got used to virtually no feedback from either of my parents and just used teachers feedback as a marker for how well I’d done. But of course with teachers they don’t give you that nice stuff when you mess up. The “never mind darling, it doesn’t matter, better luck next time”. I had no one to give me that back up, that nice firm base to fall back on, the “you’re still loved even if you do badly”.
The long term result is that I have a tendency to try too hard at everything. Or not attempt it at all if I might do badly.
So bringing this back to this week….we have been redecorating a room with a bold colour choice and a family member was openly critical. Instead of knowing full well they are very outspoken (and never complimentary), I have spent a good period of time being crushed by it. But it is not me that is crushed, it is my pride, my fear of messing up, the try really really hard bit of me. Because the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter if the colour is too bold, the room doesn’t work. The worst case scenario is my husband repaints it. That’s it. The fact I got it wrong DOESN”T MATTER. And I’m still not convinced I have got it wrong. It may not be the most amazing room in the house but it’s ok, better than before, there is no competition to fail, no irate householder to sue me, if people don’t like it, that’s their problem not mine.
I’m still working on getting the room looking nice and when I do I will post a picture. It looks best in the evening, cosy and warm.
But in the meantime I will leave you with a scrap in blues and pinks from my collage pile (from some screen prints I did a long time ago, I was on a swimming pool theme)
