From today’s Cape Cod Times:
East Sandwich- Maureen Brenner summed up in one word her advice to students graduating from The Riverview School on Sunday: yet.
“Sometimes things seem too hard and we can’t do it yet”
Riverview is a private boarding school for children and young adults with complex language, learning and cognitive disabilities. Students attend from across the United States as well as other countries. A friend of mine is a residential counselor there and I interact with the students when I visit the Riverview Cafe, where they work at jobs to prepare for life after graduation. No matter what kind of interaction I have with this school, I come away feeling uplifted and inspired. Whether it’s talking and laughing with the students at the cafe or listening to stories from my friend, the wonderful work this school does and the way it changes these children’s lives shines through. It’s no wonder Brenner’s graduation message caught my attention.
Yet. Only three letters, but a profound word. A word we should all heed as we go about our daily endeavors. Today a friend was telling me about her sleep apnea and how she is having difficulty adapting to the CPAP machine. I told her how my husband went through the same thing. He wanted to throw it out the window by the third day. He couldn’t sleep through even one night – yet. That was a year ago. Today he can’t sleep without it.
Another friend just told me how when she was first diagnosed with Chron’s disease she was convinced her life was over and was afraid to leave house because there’d be no food out there she could eat – yet. And now, one year later, after reading and learning to understand how the disease works in her body, she has resumed normal life.
When I accepted my first illustrating job six months ago, waves of cold sweat came over me. What if I couldn’t do it? In January I couldn’t do it – yet. It took a lot of study and experimentation to figure it all out. I gave myself six months to complete the artwork. Now it’s June and I’m finishing my last illustration, right on time.
That word “yet” is a savior. Often we begin something new with excitement and soon we feel overwhelmed. We begin wondering if we should’ve had our heads examined before accepting difficult tasks or venturing into unknown territory. I can’t do this becomes our mantra. What would happen to our feelings of frustration and helplessness if we modified our mantra to read I can’t do this – yet?
I’m approaching the e-publishing of the book I’m illustrating. The author gave me carte blanche to do it all on Smashwords. As of today the only thing I know about e-publishing is how to read e-books on my Kindle. I downloaded the Style Guide, began reading about formatting, and there it was – I can’t do this. They have people that will do it quickly for a small fee, but I can’t go that route. I want to do it. I want to be good at writing, illustrating, formatting, and uploading e-books. After reading that article in today’s Times, I’m changing my mantra. I can’t do this – yet. Come August, that e-book will be published and I’m going to work on printed copies with my daughter.
And so, as another day goes by, that small word “yet” took a great deal of pressure off of me, boosted my confidence, turned I can’t into I will, and…I have written.
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