In Order to be Good, You Start Bad

One True Sentence #5

Image by Courtney Kent Photography for MyNorth Media

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
- Ernest Hemingway

My one true sentence:

In order to be good, you start bad.

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Things I am bad at:

• painting

• dancing that requires learning steps or a routine

• baking

• walking into a room full of strangers

• gardening

• knitting

• pottery

• poetry

• being breezy¹

All of these things are, in theory, full of delights. For many, they illicit joy. But me? I hate them. Not because they don’t have the potential to be enjoyable, but because I am terrible at them.

And what I have learned about myself, is that if I am bad, I don’t do it.

A year after Brad died, I signed up for a pottery class to tend to my grief, craving to create something beautiful with my hands. Instead, as I spun the wheel with my foot, the nimble clay walls collapsed in on themselves, and my ball of mud ended back in the same lump of dirt it began. I quit and never went back.²

More recently, I signed up for a paint-by-numbers watercolor workshop at a resort in Mexico. With the Pacific Ocean as the backdrop, I created a masterpiece of absolute garbage. Comparing my work to those of my highly intoxicated classmates, my painting was by far the worst. Never again, I told myself as I stormed away, leaving the painting on the table.

I have been known to shove a Sorry board off the coffee table after losing. I quit the violin because I couldn’t get the notes right. I stopped writing my book because the pages were shit.

I don’t like being bad.

I’ve done enough therapy and self-reflection to know that this stems from a childhood where being good equated to being safe. Where (quietly) excelling gave the illusion of being in control.

But it wasn’t always that way.

There was a time when I loved the process more than the outcome. Finger painting in the backyard as a kid, with more paint on my body than on my canvas. Making up plays with imaginary scripts that were performed for no one but myself. Even more recently, strolling the beach for Leland Blue stones and coming up empty. It wasn’t about the end result, it was fun being messy, creative, and meditative.

When did I lose that?

When did the outcome become the only indicator of worthiness?

Shortly after Brad died, I found myself pooping in a bucket tucked along the shores of Utah’s green river. It was a weeklong backcountry canoe trek with 10 other cancer survivors, all of us trying to figure out life in the wreckage of trauma.

The purpose of the trip wasn’t to master the art of canoeing. It was to let nature guide us. To allow our minds to quiet from the expectations of everyone else. To appreciate the slowness and the stillness. To see beauty in everything, including pooping in a bucket with a five-star view.

It was never about being good at canoeing.

Just imagine me sitting a top a large plastic bucket, doing my business with these views

On this trip, my guide shared about the Zen Buddhist concept of Beginner’s Mind, or “Shoshin” in Japanese.

Beginner’s mind, “refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions.”³

It’s about approaching experiences from the lens of a beginner — with curiosity, perspective, and a sense of wonder.

Beginners don’t have answers, only questions. They don’t have expectations, only possibilities.

Beginners find enjoyment in the process, not the outcome.

There is a difference between being bad and being a beginner.

In not allowing myself to risk being bad, I’m missing the joy of starting. The joy of discovery. The joy of being messy. The joy of getting lost.

Risking being bad means a potential reward of falling in love — with a hobby, with a person, with life.

I want to let go of this need to always be good and instead embrace the process of possibly being bad.

In a couple of days, I turn 42. And maybe it’s the wisdom that comes with getting older (and giving less fucks) or maybe it’s just being exhausted with always being “good,” but I want to approach the world with a beginner’s mind.

I want to start bad and maybe even finish bad, but love the mess along the way.

I am ready for the meditation that comes with my lumpy cracked bowls, even if they are unusable. I am ready for the joy of digging in the dirt, the sun on my back, even if it results in a garden full of dead plants. I am ready to let my messy truth spill across the page, even if it doesn’t conclude with a book. I am ready to feel the vibration of the guitar, deep in my soul, even if I can’t play a single song.

I am ready to fall in love with life, right now, not later, once it’s been perfected.

I am ready.

In order to be good, you start bad.

And maybe even stay bad.

And isn’t that part of the fun?

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What’s your one true sentence today?

I’d love to hear where you’re at. What is true for you in this moment? Let’s continue the conversation in the comments below.

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1. Although I am very good at pretending otherwise

2. Actually, I was bad at life then, so I quit that too, and moved up north.

3. Wikipedia