Just Begin

Our lives are so busy that we move from work to home to sleep to work again and barely have a moment to ourselves. So weeks and months and years go by and even though we have a niggling feeling that something isn’t right, we shove down the doubt and keep going.

Then we see a friend do something amazing like get a book published (who knew that she wrote?) or hold an art showing at a local gallery (he’s an artist…really?) and we wake up, really wake up, and wonder “how the heck did that happen?”

When so many of us just barely exist, there are a few vibrant souls who have embraced their passion and are living their joy. This can do either of two things: make us so jealous that we turn our backs on them and continue dying a little more each day or it lights us up and we finally, finally, finally pursue our own dreams.

I hope you are one of the vibrant souls or are on the way to becoming one.

One of the best ways to embrace your joy is to think back to your childhood. How did you spend your play time? What activity got you so involved that hours flew by like minutes?

For me, it was drawing. Drawing horses in particular. I never went anywhere without a pad of paper and a pencil. As I got older I drew cartoons and dreamed of my own strip appearing in newspapers around the world. My Grade 8 art teacher was a great encourager and I had total faith in my abilities.

Then I took art in high school and picked up the message that cartooning wasn’t “real art”. Whether my teacher actually said those exact words or I simply interpreted his reaction to mean that, nonetheless, I quit taking classes after Grade 9 and never pursued cartooning as a career. What a shame.

How easy it is to listen to criticism and take it to heart. Don’t listen to the negative—listen to your soul instead.

Pick up the crayons you once loved or the special kind of pen that dances across the page. Begin. And feel your spirit open up and the tension ease from your shoulders.

Begin.