In this episode of the Accidental Muralist Podcast, I use the story of a recent roadway mishap to explore our American obsession with fast fixes, instant gratification, quick responses, overnight success, and the idea of divinely anointed geniuses. In our hard-driving culture it’s easy to forget that mastery (if such a thing even exists) takes time, devotion, and oodles of incremental effort. Our job is to adopt a sustainable practice and set our sights farther into the future.

To take a long view. (There’s imagery inside to help you remember. 🤓)

Enjoy the listen and please share it with the friend who comes to mind, who — like all of us — is prone to reacting with urgency in situations where a patient, dedicated approach might be called for.

Episode Notes

I paraphrase a quote attributed to Winona LaDuke, which I heard paraphrased by Valerie Segrest, a guest on the All My Relations podcast, about halfway through episode 2. She says, “If you’re making goals that you’re going to see in your lifetime, then your dreams are not big enough.”

And in general I want to say that, by “preaching” in this podcast forum and via the regular emails and blog posts I send out, I am nudged extra hard to practice what I preach. For me that usually means talking myself down from some form of perfectionism when I’m listening to what I’ve recorded and edited, and finding all the ways that I fell short, should have added this, didn’t need to say that, forgot to check my privilege here, and so on. As with every single thing in life, we improve with practice, and none of us is without fault. We must do the thing we are called to do anyway.

One of my goals (reaching beyond this lifetime!) is to model for other girls and women — and people of all genders — what taking creative risks looks like. Showing that even ultra-shy little girls who would have preferred to be invisible for the first half of their life 🙋🏽‍♀️ can learn that they, too, have ideas and stories that are worth being told.

There’s space here for all of us. Yours is waiting to be claimed.

With love for the long term and the late bloomers,
- Pam