Coloring outside of the lines has always been a challenge for me. I am definitely the kind of person who carefully outlines everything, evenly shades the picture, and ensures that any stray marks are erased. I like for things to be uniform and in place. So as you can imagine, making mistakes, and going outside of the lines has been a little difficult for me and often has stressed me out.

I can remember in Elementary School we were assigned a project to create an “Abstract Drawing,” basically meaning that we scribbled and drew all over the page. Right away I felt uncomfortable in the situation. I wanted everything to have a place and wanted every line and color to go in neat straight lines, but that was not the point of this art project...and somehow I had to turn in the assignment.

Just like my Elementary School art project, life is not always going to go exactly as planned. This is still a subject that I often struggle with in my everyday life. I am very much a planner. I have my entire life planned out and maybe you think I am kidding, but seriously, I have everything figured from now until about 2021. But unfortunately, I know that life is crazy and unpredictable. I know that I cannot erase my mistakes or even prevent them from happening. Life is unpredictable in the most amazing, beautiful way.

It took me a long while to understand that making mistakes is just a part of life. I try so hard to be nearly perfect because I do not want anyone to get mad or upset with me, but most importantly, I do not want myself, or people around me to find a reason to doubt me.

I do not want people to have negative opinions about me or potentially think that I am not capable of doing something. I put way to much pressure on myself to succeed in everything I do, to color in the lines perfectly, that I forget that sometimes a mistake, or stray line, adds more to the picture. Mistakes are not always ugly parts of the picture that need to be covered up.

All analogies aside, mistakes suck. No one wants to make them and even fewer people want to accept that they made one. It's embarrassing and you feel like you've let everyone around you down.

But instead of denying them, we need to learn to accept them and use them as a learning tool. We are humans and it is in our DNA to make mistakes. We were not created perfect, no matter how much we want to believe we are. You are bound to make mistakes, and that's totally okay.

So instead of coloring outside of the lines and saying that it is a mistake, why not make it apart of the picture.