So it was with great enjoyment that I read his latest post Up to Nothing about how in this busy world of trying to get everything done sometimes you have to kick your brain into neutral to let it take its own course to those great ideas.  I certainly agree as I’ve had some of my best ideas fall out of the sky in a daydream.

But then he talks about going to a bookstore and stumbling upon Wreck This Journal a guide to creativity that encourages, nay, demands the reader to experiment and do destructive things to the book.  You rip out pages, put pages in the laundry, spill coffee on them, generally make a mess and see what happens!  I’m thinking of picking one up for my daughter and myself.

And then the thought occurred to me – what if I were to approach life this way?  Not that I try to destroy my life, but that I drop the fear of doing things “the wrong way”.  That life is something to be experimented with and tried out.   That I get out there, get crazy, and not be afraid to wreck it.

Having grown up in a strict religious environment I can tell you the pressure of trying to do everything perfectly instills a fear of experimenting with life.  I was so afraid of doing things “wrong”  and making mistakes that it was hard to truly learn from and enjoy life.

I realize that since leaving “the church” several years ago I have been conducting the grand experiment of my life.  Living more like this over the last few years and letting go of doing things the “right” way has made my life so much more fun and interesting!   I have learned more about who I am than I ever thought possible, and have grown in such profound ways because I stopped worrying about doing what I was “supposed” to do.

There are times that I fall back into that “habit of perfection”.  I usually find that this makes me stressed out and tense because it usually means that I have some ideal of how something should be rather than trying it out and letting it unfold.  Too often that image of what something should be is someone else’s idea.  It’s like trying to create a masterpiece using paint by numbers.  A true masterpiece comes from doing it your way, putting your spin, style, or whatever it is that truly makes it yours.  It’s like David Wilcox said in Leave it Like it is:

A life-time of follow the lines/So it’s just like all of the rest

So go out there.  Make a mess.  Play in the mud.  Do things wrong.  Don’t be afraid to wreck this life.