Wednesday, May 14, 2008

A Confession

I have always been afraid of failure. I started this post with several paragraphs about how from the time I was a child all the way through college I was afraid of failure. But I started sounding really depressing and I am generally not a depressing person. The delete button is my friend. Suffice it to say that I've let fear of failure dictate some pretty major decisions in my life.

Fast forward to today. You'd think that someone who graduated with a major in Home Economics/Emphasis in Interior Design would have a beautifully decorated home, perfectly designed and color coordinated. Well, it's not a pig-sty, but it's not what I want. Why? Why is it not painted and tiled and arranged like I want? Because I'm afraid of messing up. I'm afraid I won't do something perfect and I will have proven my fear of failure was founded. What if I don't spackle correctly? What if there are bumps on the wall? What if I don't sand the cabinets right? What if the paint I pick out doesn't come clean very well? What if, what if, what if? I am paralyzed by fear of messing up in my own home.

Now that I've thrown that on all of you, let me say that I'm not all "gloom, dispair, and agony on me." (name that T.V. show) By reading beautiful women's blogs like The Nester at Nesting Place and Kim at A Soft Place To Land I'm realizing that it doesn't have to be perfect. Like the button on the left side of my blog says, "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful." That comes from Nester, and slowly but surely I'm letting that seep into my mind.

So last night as I was trying to drift off to sleep I started thinking of things I could just jump in and start. As I attempt to make it beautiful, not perfect, I will keep you abreast of the situation. Who knows what will happen...

Edited Thursday, May 15 10:21 p.m. ~ Did anyone notice that Pioneer Woman quotes the same television show I did? You know what they say, great minds think alike!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Try anything you want. You will be successful! It will look good. With your creativeness and wisdom you can do wonders. Don't be scared! I'm sure your husband will approve. :-)

Kimba said...

Jinkies! (too much Scooby Doo over here) Did I seriously just get mentioned in the same sentence as The Nester? I'm embarassed and tickled all at the same time!

Your attitude is right! What's the worst that could happen? Is a bump in your newly spackled wall really that big of a deal? If you really don't like the paint, you can do it over. I can't tell you many times I had to repaint something. No biggie. Most mistakes can be corrected.

Have fun!
Kim

Kat said...

Grrr. I typed out this big long comment and lost it. Now I will have to shorten and sum up as I'm too lazy to type it all out again.

I'm right there with you, sister! Wasn't it TWO YEARS AGO that we remodelded? Have I done ANYTHING to decorate or accent? Nope. Not much. Mine isn't so much because of fear, but plenty of "what ifs". What if I do this or that and it goes out of style? What if I buy this or that and I find something I like better later? And finally, it all costs money!! But since you are making a nesting groupy out of me, when I had my Mother's Day outing Sunday, I bought quite a few things for the house. I didn't spend a fortune and I love everything I bought. This also proving the theory you don't really have to spend a bundle to spruce things up a bit.

Also, you are making bird nerds out of us. We can't help ourselves. I noticed Nester and Kimba have little bird accents in their home. I think Nester even has a little bird nest with eggs in it...I think I saw that somewhere anyway. Well, there is a gift shop in our neck of the woods that has a set of 3 different sized bird nests with eggs in them, and they are not too pricey. Anna (the future of bird nerds) and I really like them and want them. At Kirklands, I found cute little wood bird accent/decor thingies I'd like to go back and get, too.

Oh yeah, you are making quite the monster out of me. But I love you anyway :)

The Nester said...

I love what you wrote and I was the EXACT same way up until a few years ago.

I figured out if you have enough imperfectly beautiful things together you only notice the positives and never even see the imperfections! Can't wait to see what you do first!

I bet you have one thing on your list that you could do right now in the next 20 minutes!

Kimba said...

Hey girl, just stopping by to say hello.

I agree that it's the grey area that gives me trouble with TV. The reality is, I'm pretty sure that the Lord would be pleased if I just pitched the darn thing out the window. Although hubby would not be so pleased.

Argh. So long as He doesn't call on me to stop watching The Office. :)

CarlynB said...

Hey Sister -

We share the same genes, although they are expressed in such different ways. We also share this same fear. For me, this is the silliest thing to be afraid of.
You know my house - we don't own it, the entity which does own it doesn't care what we do with it- there's NO WAY that I could possibly mess this house up - really. What the heck have I been so scared of all these years?

Anyway - I took the plunge a couple of months ago and started on the entry way. I cleaned the walls, spackled, and repaired a hole in the wall that Lucky or Bess chewed out. I had spent months poring over paint chips at Sherwin-Williams before - is this the right shade, or not, blah, blah. This time I just picked a shade of yellow at Wal-mart, took it home and painted those walls all by myself. TA-DA. Did it. It looks so much better and the yellow color is perfect to me. Of course, now the rest of the house looks that much worse since I've fixed up the entry a bit, but I'm going to get to it.

I'm thinking of this place as my "training house." I'm learning, so that when I finally, one of these days, get into our own home, I'll know better what works and what doesn't, what I can do, and what I want to do.

So, get un-paralyzed by doing one little thing. One little thing.

You can do this, Sister.

BTW - That TV show was "Hee-Haw" a program that Grandaddy never missed! He used to say this about one of the co-hosts of that show: "He can't help being ugly, but he could stay home."

Love you,

Sister