Painting by numbers; a new approach to adulting

Do you remember painting by numbers? Those beautiful workbooks where you could just sit and paint, in the boxes in exactly the way they told you to and then end up with something wonderful?

I have decided that paint by numbers is the ideal metaphor for grown up life. Firstly it is what most of us think life is – do this, in that way and you get a beautiful picture.  But what you forget in the doing is that you are expecting to see the whole picture and at some points you are just painting in all the green bits and don’t know how it’s going to look yet. The problem is you trust the paint by numbers to give you a beautiful picture in the end. And you don’t yet trust yourself to do the same thing. 

Which is what got me thinking. Life is both as simple and definitely not as simple as a paint by numbers.  Most things have a cause and effect, most things can be created if we believe we can create them. And most things have a certain sequence to them. But at the same time, it is unpredictable, we have no numbers to follow step by step and no assurance it will turn into the beautiful Monet style Lilly pad that we saw on the box. Which leaves us back at square one? Or does it… 

Here is my thinking, what if we decided to embrace not seeing the whole picture clearly, but instead embraced the idea of painting all the number ones – maybe the number we need to define for ourselves so when we pick up our paint brush we didn’t need to do the work of deciding every time we can just paint. And maybe every now and then look up and see if it looks right and feels right and if not course correct. Pick up number 2 and try and different colour for a while until we have the balance. 

Which is I think the secret. Finding the focus of the small numbers everyday – doing the work that fills it in and also checking every now and then are you heading in the right direction. Both the small view and the big. Of course, it doesn’t promise you a perfect picture. But it gives you the chance to create something and then try again. This I think is the joy of growing up, there is not one chance, there are many consistently over and over again. We just need to recognise that everything counts, but it doesn’t all need to be great. Being is enough. And once we embrace this, being ok with the season we are in. Is it the time to set up some clear boundaries and follow things step by step or the time to step away and look at the whole picture and readjust?

In theory easy, in practice, well let’s face it, a bit of a shit show. But hey, if we need some practice we can always try a real paint by numbers and see where we end up!