Cultivating Patience
We live in a hasty world, structured more and more around the goal of immediate gratification. We want what we want, we want it now, and we want it with as little work as possible on our own part.
I recently took up knitting again. Other than a few ambitious sweater projects in my youth, I have always been a plain knitter, sticking to the simple stitches to create hats and scarves for family and friends. For some reason, my interest was recently piqued by an online class on lace knitting at Craftsy.com...so I picked up my knitting needles, settled down in front of the video and began to learn some new techniques. After ripping back to the beginning about four or five times—sometimes after an entire week's worth of effort—I was feeling a bit discouraged and shared my feelings of inadequacy with a friend who is a master knitter. To my surprise, she told me that she OFTEN has to rip back and start over in her projects, too.
It got me thinking about perseverance and patience, and the importance of taking the time to do things right. I thought about why I had started the project in the first place.
Once I realized how much of my effort was invested in showing off the final result, and in pressuring myself to completion, I was more able forgive myself if I made mistakes, to relax and enjoy each stitch—especially when I learned a new technique of inserting a "lifeline" once a certain portion of the project was done correctly, so that I don't have to rip everything out if I make a mistake! I even enrolled in a second lace knitting class and bought some new wool (alpaca and merino! yummy!) for the next project.
As makers, we are just as prone to impatience as the next guy...we want to see the final product blossom, we want to know how it's going to turn out. Cut to the chase, already!
But masters in all fields of endeavour know that projects of true value cannot be rushed to completion; seeds that are forced to grow too quickly are straggly and weak, unlikely to survive; trees that grow quickly are soft and not very useful for building things that last; even as firewood, they burn out quickly and don't produce a lasting heat.
And so I say: take the time, make the time... cultivate patience with yourself and with others... the effort is worthwhile and will make itself known in the quality of the final result.
UPDATE: And here is the final result!
