When I was a kid I loved to colour. At first I wasn’t concerned about lines. I just took the crayons and drew them across the picture resulting in lines going every which way imaginable. Sometimes the finished product looked like I was in some sort of a mad frenzy while colouring and yet from a different angle it looked somewhat creative. As I got older I understood that the objective was to colour within the lines. The completed pictures looked nice but they lacked the creativity of my early youth. I felt constrained because I believed I had to follow the norm. I missed the frenzied look and the fun of colouring outside the lines.
Colour outside the lines … what does that mean? The grammarist.com states …
“an idiom that means to not follow the rules, to think creatively, to behave in an unconventional manner.”
As an adult we’re expected to conform to certain mores and I do, but sometimes I just want to “colour outside the lines.” There is so much pressure to be an adult, to follow the rules, to make no mistakes and to be reasonable and sensible and sometimes stoic and to always, always colour within the lines.
Well, screw that I say. Break free of that. Sometimes we have to do something unconventional, something impromptu. Sometimes we have to colour outside the lines just for pleasure and personal satisfaction.
I’m not saying do something illegal or something to hurt another person. I’m just saying do something unusual, out of the ordinary to what you’d always do. Walk in the rain with or without an umbrella, sing out loud, strike up a conversation with a stranger, walk barefoot, do a cartwheel, laugh out loud. Just do something.
COLOUR OUTSIDE THE LINES … it’s empowering.
Until the next time.
Sometimes I live as if the lines do not exist. In fact, most of the time. Thanks for reminding me.