
Recently, I started running. Just to prove that I can. Here's the truth. I CAN run. I just don't LIKE to run. But I am running even if it is a run/walk thing that takes forever and people walking their dogs and pushing strollers zoom right past me when I am "running". And even if I am on my fourth week of this run/walk thing and I still can't go more than 2 minutes "running" because my knees and shins feel like they may pop and it doesn't matter how much I stretch and that I have new shoes.
As kids we are told. We are told what to do, we are told how to do it. We are told who we look like, what we are good at, what we are not so good at. We are constantly learning, evaluating. That's what we are meant to do.
I decided I couldn't run in the 3rd grade because I was the slowest one at the 50 yard dash. Seriously. That's why I decided this. But just because in the 3rd grade when I was eight years old, I was slower than the other kids, does that mean I could never ever run or be a runner? Maybe. I truthfully don't think I have a runner's shape, but does that mean I can't run?
Through our learning and understanding about the world around us, our place in it, our place in our own families, we come to believe certain things to be true. And a lot of times, these things aren't the nicest of things, and probably a good portion of the time our evaluations of ourselves especially aren't even true.
Even if I was pretty correct about the running thing, why I personally chose to believe some of the craziness I did, I'm not sure.
I hear my sixth grade teacher saying, "Bari Palles, if your head wasn't attached it would be long gone!". Hence the belief in my perpetual disorganization.
I decide that since my sister and my brother are good at art, that I am not. I'll be good at something else. I'll be good at singing, acting, dancing. (I was too!)
I decide that since in the second grade, I'm struggling with math, I must not be able to do it. I'm just not smart enough. I avoid it from there on out.
I decide a whole bunch of other not-nice-to-myself-negative-self-image stuff too.
And I hold these truths to be self-evident. For a very very long time.
But as you know, over the past few years, I decided to knock these beliefs off their dirty dusty old shelf. And create new beliefs.
I've totally put holes in my laundry list of "things I can not do." Even math... although a good algebra class might help that situation a lot more if ever I should feel the need to torture myself in that way.
Write a book is one of them. Pretty cool. I'm getting there on that one.
Today, I put holes in the "I can not illustrate" belief. How I thought I could draw two whole fabric lines and more but not illustrate sewing diagrams is sort of unbelievable when I say it out loud, but there it is. Ok, so, I can sorta' illustrate stuff. And I really like it too.
So, what (self) truths do you hold self evident. And why?
How much ya' wanna' bet it's not true?