My Romantic History

I’m going to tell you a story (stick with me there is a point!).

Once upon a time, I fell in love with a lovely Belgian girl named Cathie. She sat next to me in two classes per week, and although her English was little, we would smile, help each other and flirt a little bit, but were always laughing. However, Cathie was stunningly beautiful and way out of my league.

So I never acted upon it and we continued to take class together. One day near Christmas, we were at the lockers getting our things after class when Cathie turned to me and said “I’m going back to Belgium tomorrow, why didn’t you ever ask me to go for coffee?”

I mumbled something about British reserve and she just looked puzzled, like maybe I was saying I didn’t want to.

Well, me and Cathie were never to be, and 15 years on I know it, but I was thinking about her recently, well actually, more specifically, I was thinking about why I hadn’t asked her for coffee. I has convinced myself of what was possible and what was not possible and I acted upon that as if it was law.

But it was not law. It was a decision I had made.

And I want you to think about it. How often do we as artists, tell ourselves something, developing a fixed mindset to something that simply isn’t true.

And how self limiting are these beliefs? Exceptionally. I lost my shot with the beautiful Cathie, but what opportunities are you letting pass by because you’ve limited yourself?

People call it ‘being realistic’ but no one ever created anything of worth by being conservative, because we cannot grow if we decide our own boundaries, we simply never allow ourselves to grow beyond it.

And we develop stoical phrases like ‘what’s for you, won’t go by you’ and it’s a way of copping out on taking the plunge, taking a risk, showing a willingness to grow beyond our self imposed limits.

So today, and for the rest of the week, don’t be like me, embrace things outside your comfort zone, outside the parameters you’ve set for yourself, embrace opportunities, you never know where it might take you.

And Daniel Jackson’s play My Romantic History is currently at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow until the end of the month.