FROM THE EDITOR

Molly Backes, Communications Coordinator

Afew years ago, back when those wine and painting parties were all the rage, a couple of friends and I went to one at a quirky little boutique in Chicago. The twist was that instead of painting, we were using old scraps of fabric to create art. Each table had a colorful stack of fabric samples, plus ribbons, beads, buttons, lace, thread, scissors, glue, heavy-duty staplers, and a blank canvas for each person. My friend Nan and I dove right in, collecting textures and colors that spoke to us, making little piles of velvet and brocade, cotton and chenille. Neither of us had any particular plan for the material we were collecting, but we trusted that with enough time (and enough wine) we’d figure something out. After a few minutes, though, we noticed that our third friend wasn’t following suit. She was just watching us, looking increasingly anxious.

I asked her what was wrong. “How do you know what to do?” Jen asked. “I don’t know what to do!”

We had no idea what we were doing, we assured her. We were just going to try some different things and see what looked good. “I’m going to cut these flowers out, because I think they’re pretty,” I said. “That’s the whole extent of my plan so far.”

“Why don’t you just try something and see if you like it?” Nan suggested.

“But how do I know if I’m doing it right? What if I screw up? What if you both make something cute and I make something ugly?”

What if! What if you try something and it doesn’t work? What if you look foolish? What if you embarrass yourself in front of everyone you know?

What if you put your whole heart into something and it never gets off the ground? What if you let yourself care deeply about something or someone and they break your heart? The thing about creating something new—whether it’s a work of art, or a business, or a relationship—is that you have to be willing to fail. And that’s terrifying!

At some point in our lives, most of us decide that the discomfort of failure isn’t worth the potential joy of trying something new, and we begin to stick to activities and areas where we know we’ll be more successful. Unfortunately, this can mean that in the moments when we need to summon our most creative inner resources, we find that they’re a little rusty.

Recognizing this in myself, I decided to make a regular practice of doing things I’m bad at in order to remind myself that it is possible to fail epically and still have fun. Bowling, for instance. I am a terrible bowler, and yet I always have a blast doing it. When we allow ourselves to be untalented, uncoordinated, and even hilariously unsuccessful at something low-stakes like bowling—and still find a way to have fun with it!—we remind ourselves that we’re capable of being messy and imperfect and still finding joy in the process.

To create is to be uncertain. Starting something new, something that may fail at any moment, never gets easy. But if you practice feeling that discomfort in moments that don’t matter as much, you can build your inner resources of bravery and find that you’re less afraid of failing, even when the stakes are high. ◊