Why Wait for a Clean Slate?

Sometimes the prospect of starting something from scratch is so overwhelming that many will get stagnated. We stop before we start because starting over seems so overwhelming that it stunts some.?I learned something about starting over this past February during a virtual paint night with our agents.?It was still before the covid vaccine had been offered and many were reluctant to go to events, so we organized a virtual paint party. Participants were mailed all their supplies (paints, brushes, canvas), and we all got together one weeknight while an instructor walked us through painting a sunny ocean scenery. My daughter and I both participated in the paint night from our kitchen counter as we chatted with agents who were at their homes painting too. At the end of the evening, everyone held up their paintings for the camera. The painting they taught us had lots of yellows, purples, and blues. Each agent had painted his or her own unique version of the one below.

After the event was over, my daughter told me she did not like her painting. She did not like the colors or the scenery. I told her that we could plan another paint night, or that better yet I would pick up a new canvas and paints and she could paint something else.?I then proceeded to clean the house, return calls, and get ready for the next day.?About 45 minutes later, my daughter presented her new painting to me.?It was similar to the old one in that it was still an ocean scenery.?It was different from the old painting in that it was an evening scene, instead of daytime. It featured mountains instead of clouds, the moon instead of the sun, and stars instead of birds. I asked her where she found the canvas, to which she explained she painted over the picture she did not like.

I learned a couple of interesting lessons that night from my eleven-year-old.

First, I have observed that at times it is human nature to delay starting something new while waiting for a clean slate. For her, the clean slate was the painting she didn’t like. When she told me she didn’t like her painting, my brain determined that I would have to go buy a blank canvas so she could try again. Her brain calculated her options differently, seeing that she could turn what she already had into the blank canvas. If she had waited for a new canvas, there would have been a delay as it required going to a store, shopping for supplies, and planning another night of painting. ?Just maybe the new creation would never have been born. ?The efficient way, painting over and integrating the picture she did not like resulted in a more immediate and gratifying outcome. A new creation was born from the one she was not pleased with. Since there was no unnecessary delay in the recreation, the creation happened. An outcome that may not have occurred at all had she waited for the new canvas. This is not unlike life itself. How often does our new creation go unborn, as we wait for the brand-new canvas?

Second, starting from scratch isn’t always the best idea anyway. Starting from scratch is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Likely, there is value in what got you here in the first place, so rather than start from scratch, look closely at the shadow of what you created and use it as a model to create something better. In the painting my daughter created, the clouds were turned into mountains, the birds were turned into stars, and the sun was turned into the moon, suggesting there was value in the first version of the painting. The shadow of the first painting enabled her to create a new painting she was more content with in the end.

Her painting now hangs in a special place, a good reminder to test assumptions and thinking. ?It is a constant friendly example that a clean slate need not be a blank slate, and, before cleaning any slate, evaluate closely to determine what value has already been created and then make it the foundation of your new creation.