Success

I've been reading a publication called the fishwrapper.  This is a local to me publication that reminds me of the feel-good emails that we have all received ad nauseum at one time or another.  It's filled with anecdotes, stories and help wanted ads.  However, there are some genuine gems in there. Recently, the topic was success.

Several things in this are things that apply to our knitting and crocheting.

1.  Success is when you look back at your life, and more specifically your knitting and crocheting, and the memories make you smile.

2.  Top 3 tips to success: Read something no one else is reading, think something no one else is thinking, do something no one else is doing.  Instead of being a trend follower, YOU could be starting the trends.

3.  You don't have to be a professional to be successful.  Google and Apple were started by amateurs.  Professionals build the Titanic.  Your skills are great for what you are currently doing.  Add to them as you want to do other things.

4.  Stop complaining about life and your projects and start celebrating it and them.  If you have done the best you can with the tools and skills at your disposal, celebrate!

5.  Other cultures can teach us many things.  There's various color work techniques named for their specific regions.  There are lace techniques also named for their regions.  There are even various animal and plant fibers that are unknown to us or that are in the realm of legend because they are hard to get for whatever reason.  We need to share with others our own skills and possibly tools and materials when we visit another region.  Just as the regions we visit will share with us. 
 
6.  Live the life you want to be seen in.  This follows the line of thinking of being a living sermon.  As an example, I want to be known as a knitter and crocheter.  I, therefore, take a knitting or crochet project with me many places.  I work on that thing when I wait for something to happen, long line in the grocery store? I knit on a simple something until it's my turn to unload the cart. Waiting for a train? I can get in a few stitches.  When I was younger and my sons were in school, I had my kids with me as I dropped them from one thing to another throughout the week and had my project with me and for sports seasons a huge batch of healthy cookies for whatever team they were in.

7.  Don't always listen accurately to people.  Yes, you saw that correctly.  There is a story of an old donkey.  One day the farmer decided the donkey was going to die soon and he would give the inevitable a hand.  The farmer pushed the tired old donkey into an unused dry well.  He had a neighbor helping him to fill in the well.  Shovelful by shovelful, the donkey was being covered.  Naturally the old donkey was confused by this dirt.  He's shake the dirt off and step up on the pile.  The farmer and neighbor yelled at the donkey to quit that and stay put.  But being old the donkey didn't quite catch the words and it made him mad about the dirt they kept tossing on him.  More and more the dirt filled the well.  More and more the donkey shook off the dirt and stepped up.    Now the donkey could see daylight filling the well and hear the yelling but still couldn't quite understand the words.  He thought to himself "I really have to get out of this hole, they need me.  Just listen to the yelling."  Suddenly he steps out of the well because there was enough dirt that the well was filled.  The farmer said to the donkey "Why aren't you dead?  You were on your last breath last night."  The donkey said in reply "Last night I felt that no one needed me anymore and I was heartbroken.  Today I fell in a hole and you and the neighbor were shouting encouragement to me and giving me more and more dirt to stand on to climb slowly to the top.

So the morals to this story are 1) Don't always listen to naysayers.  If you really want to do complicated lace or color-work as a beginner, go for it but follow #2.  2) Slow and steady will get you to your desired destination.  Go slow and keep trying.  3) Choose to hear encouragement even in the face of criticism.  If someone says terrible things, chalk it up to they're having a bad day and don't let it bring you down.  OR, find a message in it that can inspire improvement.  Your stitches are wonky.  Lesson learned that maybe blocking would help.  Your color choice is horrible.  Lesson here is that the observer doesn't like those colors but you do or the recipient does.  Tough cookies on them.