Creative Exercise #4 Make Mistakes

Ellen Benson added this exercise to her site. She says, "I just saw a youtube video with Sir Ken Robinson speaking about how our current education system (NCLB, anyone?) tends to kill creativity (just ask any parent or teacher). Not to get on that soap box, but he says that kids will take a chance - they're not afraid of being wrong, and if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. He quotes Picasso as saying, "All children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up." Robinson asserts that we don't grow into creativity - we grow out of it. It's a long video, but interesting, and I think worth watching.

So here's our assignment: make mistakes. What?!? All you perfectionists out there are freaking out right now. Really. Make a mistake, or show a mistake that you've made that you love. Maybe you messed up a recipe and it's now your family's favorite. Or you painted your bathroom wall a wrong color and now you want to paint your whole house that color. Because let's not get any further in our creative exercises without feeling that we're allowed to make mistakes.

Here is my answer: When I was in college, I met a really cool guy. He was cute and smart and had a great sense of humor. I thought to myself, "this guy would make a great husband and father." So I tried to set him up with my best friend (my mistake). Unfortunately, she was very high maintenance. She took longer on her hair than I did getting out the door. Fortunately, he was not impressed. As I spent more time with him, I realized that he would make a perfect match for me. So I married him. Here is a photo of us in 1993.