These facts tell me that sometimes it takes lots of tries and
angles before you get something right - but when you eventually
do get what you want, the final product is awesome.
Let's take relationships, for example. Many of us have gone
through a bunch of them. Some of us might be critical of ourselves
for not getting it right the first (or the tenth) time. You
might think there is something wrong with you for not being
able to stick it out "until death do us part." Or you might
think you have a faulty "picker." Or the universe suffers from
lack and is unable to provide you with a sufficient supply of
healthy or available partners. ("The odds are good but the goods
are odd." Or, "All the good ones are taken or gay.")
Yet
if you look at your relationships, or similarly your career
path, as a journey rather than a destination, you can see that
every experience has served to build your consciousness to the
point where you can attract more and more of what you want.
And if you create a relationship or career that really works,
you can thank all of those that didn't work for contributing
to your learning curve toward what ultimately serves you.
The story is told of a woman who recognized Pablo Picasso in
an open-air market in Nice in 1959. Being a huge fan, the woman
approached Picasso and asked him if he would be willing to do
a charcoal sketch of her, for which she would be happy to pay
him.
Picasso studied the woman for a few moments and agreed. The
two found a table at a sidewalk café, Picasso took out
his materials, and went to work. The woman was in ecstasy! Fifteen
minutes later he turned the pad around and showed the lady his
finished work. It was spectacular - an authentic Picasso, and
of her!
The woman clutched the portrait and thanked the master profusely.
She opened her purse, removed her checkbook, and asked, "How
much will that be?"
"Five thousand dollars," Picasso answered in a matter-of-fact
voice.
The woman's jaw dropped. "But, sir, with all due respect, the
picture took you only fifteen minutes to draw."
"No, madam," he answered quite seriously. "You don't understand.
The painting took me eighty years and fifteen minutes to draw."
So it is that greatness is built - not overnight or in a flash,
but through the steady development of skill, consciousness,
and heart. If you want to produce a great scene in your life,
whether it's a movie, a marriage, a business, or spiritual mastery,
you may have to walk through many takes to get there. But when
you do, what a scene it will be!
Meanwhile, enjoy the takes as they show up. The directors of
the movies above could have taken shortcuts, settled for less
than excellence, or walked off the set when they didn't get
it right the first time. But they remained true to the Big Picture.
They held a powerful vision of how they wanted it to turn out,
they knew they would know it when they hit on it - and they
did.
You have supremely memorable scenes developing in your life
that will long outlive the time and effort it took to get there.
When audiences talk about the chariot race, the Red Sea parting,
or the orgasm scene, they think little of the ride it took to
get to those destinations. Yet the directors savor those scenes
above all else because they knew the journey required to arrive.
The final cut is yours, and a classic one it will be.
When
I recently re-viewed these classic films on DVD I watched some
of the special features accompanying the films and did some
research on the Internet Move Database (
