Drawing Outside the Lines

MotivationMonday with Create Change

*The intent: find a phrase in each #motivationmonday Instagram video and share some unsolicited thoughts.*

During the Instagram live video with Chyler and Nathan this last week, at one point Nathan had mentioned “drawing outside the lines” and for the life of me, I can’t recall exactly in what context it was said. My guess is likely, when he presented the #TueDoList assignment, regardless of the context I would encourage everyone to watch it, or tune in this next Monday for the next installment. That being said, in the very moment he said that statement a light flickered in my mind and I wrote it down without any notion of why. Sometimes that is just how my mind works…little fits and pops with the occasional winding and whirring of a music box, minus the music. In any event, it dawned on me later in the day that I should try and work through my thoughts and determine what on earth I was meant to do with what Nathan said, so here we go.

In my real life, I’m a therapist that serves a very underfunded and rarely supported population. They are the first to be blamedfor society’s ills, the last to get resources and honestly, I cannot think of working with any other population. The severely chronically mental ill and substance use folks are my people. They are overlooked, mistreated, viewed as second-class citizens and many are homeless, living under local bridges or on the streets outside the ever increasingly full missions. I’ve lost track of how many of those I serve have been wrongly arrested, wrongly evicted, misrepresented, used and abused and played against each other for nothing more than crumbs from society’s buffet table. I have watched people cross the street to get away from them, throw change at them in an effort to get them away from their business door, the police called just to move them from a parking lot and everything in between. I’ve seen people literally walk over them instead of asking if they need help…and I wonder what have we become? Truly, is this what Jesus had in mind when he walked this earth preaching love and acceptance? Where did we go so wrong in failing our brothers and sisters?

I suppose this is the time you ask yourself, are you going to mention the phrase that Nathan spoke of or is this just another complaining statement about the political direction our country has gone? Well, honestly my thoughts have nothing to do with the political landscape. It does however have everything to do with how we treat those deemed ‘not like me.’ It’s the classic ‘us vs them’ problem that tears every society apart at the seams, rather than including all the differences and uniqueness that we carry we find the smallest of differences to create distance. We do the opposite of what we should be doing, what would be in the worlds best interest…just like as a child you get shamed for being different. The ones who get praised, sit still and face forward. They don’t copy from the desk next to them, they get good grades, they look the part and expect that from everyone around them. But what about those that can’t sit still, the ones who didn’t get breakfast before school, or the ones who have brains that work differently than the others…when you stay in the lines, you are praised and your artwork gets placed on the fridge, but for those who color or draw outside the lines, get their work thrown out. An example of arbitrary judgments at best that set up our lives and how we view people.

Drawing outside the lines doesn’t decrease the value of a child’s art because at the heart of it, they tried to do their best. It’s about giving kids and others the skills to get better. It’s about acceptance of what we see, what our individual experiences are like and being present. We don’t have to agree, we don’t have to make judgement calls about who another person is…we’ve never walked in their shoes. We have no idea what private battles others are fighting. We don’t know what their life has been like, where they’ve been or what they have experienced. Yet we look with our eyes and cast opinions about as though they are not hurtful. The reality of this is that we are further apart now more than ever before despite the fact that we are all very similar. We all want to feel love, acceptance and desire to be heard. We all have hearts that break, tears that get shed and have the potential to experience joy at the hands of another.

We are not so different. So take a moment, take a chance to draw outside the lines…be afraid to make a mistake…do something that scares you, try something new…smile at that homeless person you pass on the street. Walk on the same side of the street as the person talking to themselves. I’m not asking for a miracle, I’m just asking you to consider being human. I’m asking you to accept all the colors that make the picture glorious inside and outside the lines. We can be so much more. All great things start small.

After all, even the mighty lion was once a cub.