The journey of a thousand miles does not behind with a step. Before that someone has to naively ask “how hard could it possibly be”
And that is how I have journey my entire life. How hard could it possibly be to learn how to crochet? I am sure it is not that hard. Everyone has learned how to do it from little old ladies to little boys to villagers in far flung parts of the world where they have no electricity and can not read. So I am sure someone like me can learn.
How hard could it possibly be to bake bread? People have been baking bread since the beginning of time and with far less appliances, tools and information than we have.
How hard could it possibly be to raise a child? Mothers have been doing it since Adam and Eve. Even animals raise their young, teach them the skills they need and protect them from the evils of their world.
How hard could it possibly be to crochet a blanket using sock yarn?
Ok the answer to that one was clear. Most blankets are not done in sock yarn.
But you get the point. I don’t think these things are easy. Quite the contrary. I understand that they are not but they are also not impossible. There is a big difference between something hard or undoable and something that just needs time or skill to be done. As for time; time passes anyway, if you shy away from things because they will take a long time then that is just a shame. Skill is something you can only acquire by doing. You must start now, to start learning. You won’t magically learn how to do something by wishing for it. Sadly skill is not acquired by osmosis.
And then there is patience. Patience is the secret superhero of all things. Patience is the master of all skills. It is the one you need to be patient when something is taking too long or something is not coming easily to you as you had imagined.
Whenever I post pictures of my crafts or baked stuff or whatever on social media platforms where non crafters see them I get one of two very common comments “that must be so very hard” and “I would never have the patience to do that”.
And my replies are almost always the same. “It is not hard, it just takes practice” and “patience is a learned skill and nothing trains you to be patient like learning a craft.”
I imagine they must think I am either crazy or just trying to show off. But really I am neither. A couple of years ago I decided that I should start making pizza at home. My kitchen is tiny, I didn’t have a mixer and I had no idea what to do. One pizza at a time, every week things started to change. I spent years kneading the dough by hand until I finally bought a mixer. I used baking sheets at first then bought fancy pizza pans (totally worth the investment by the way) I used different types of flour and yeast in different proportions until I finally got it right. Even the toppings had their fair share of experiments. Today I can finally answer the questions of how hard could it possibly be.
Today it is not hard at all but it definitely was harder but never too hard not to try.
And the picture at the top? It took me many shots before I finally got the one I liked. It is all about starting and being patient until you get the right shot.
