drawing circles

On the first day of my seventh grade art class, my art teacher asked everyone to take out a pencil and draw a circle the size of a quarter without referencing one. He walked around the art room, examining each student's circles. He claimed that for the students who couldn't accurately draw a quarter-sized circle at some point in their thirteen-year-old lives someone told them they could not draw. His mission was to prove the opposite.

I loved that art class and eccentric teacher who braided his beard and performed at the Renaissance Faire. Our first assignment was to decorate the front of our portfolio folder with a life-sized silhouette of our profile and illustrations that represented our identities. That was the first time I had to confront the divisive symbols of my Vietnamese heritage (which is a story for another day).

There is a reason why the lesson about drawing quarter-sized circles still sticks with me today. What people say to us in childhood sticks, sometimes deep into our adulthoods. But it is possible to undo those negative beliefs, get closer to our authentic selves, and heal.

At one of the after-school programs run by my former workplace, one of the elementary school youth had the ability to copy complex Pokémon drawings to near perfection. When I was visiting one day, I watched him crumple up one of those drawings because he "messed up." I did my best to communicate how I thought he was wildly more talented than I was and that it was okay to mess up sometimes, but I wasn't sure if what I was saying was adequate to transforming the perfectionist mindset he already had.

Thinking back about this and many interactions I've had with youth in the past who were very self-critical about their skills, I think I've failed to say what I truly believe. I'm not sure if it's healthy to spread the belief that it's okay to mess up sometimes as long as most other times you get things right or perfect. What's most important is enjoying the experience of what you are doing, even if most times you fail.