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WHEN SIZE MATTERS
Monday July 15, 2019
What size are you?
I don’t mean clothing, height or heft – what size is your work, how big your life, how grand your dreams?
My late friend Dale Auger painted 5’ X 5’ canvases mostly. When I hired him to paint something 20’ wide he was initially daunted, then painted a phenomenal mural. That conversation demonstrated something we often shy from. Things we’ve never done or seeming bigger than our experience or skillset, not because of our talent but because confidence is fickle …
When we have something we want to do, do we limit our thinking/ambitions/work by ‘size we are used to’? In so doing we limit what we are prepared to stretch for. Time we re-size our scope!
I work my size in this medium, my ‘comfortable canvas’ size, writing 272 words most days. Sometimes 136. Almost always some multiple or fraction of 272. Self-imposed yardstick works best for Musing columns. Choice of 272, or ‘getting to 272’ – daily reminder of Lincoln for his speaking mastery but more for his economy with words – less volume, more punch. Less size, more value …
Look around you world, the people you flock with, work with and admire – how big is their canvas, how large do they dream? How large are your dreams?
We can all move mountains, build mountains and tunnel through mountains. ‘Mountain stuff’ has been invented already – isn’t a question of whether anything can be done, but rather a question of whether we believe we can do it. More importantly, that we must do it.
What size are you?
What matters to you?
Of course you are up to it.
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