Keep improving:

A very interesting event happened in my life recently. I got some interesting messages from this episode. I thought of sharing. I like to draw and paint. I did not have the opportunity to learn it formally. Now I am more relaxed and hence thought of drawing and painting. I saw a picture while browsing in Google and decided to sketch it. I give below the sketch…….

I personally felt happy that I could sketch well; I dared to post it in the social networking site. I got lots of  “Likes” and comments such as ‘super’, ‘classic’ ‘great work’, ‘nice’, ‘wow’, ‘beautiful’, ‘wonderful’, ‘neat work’ ….., and many more adjectives. You can imagine the joy. For a person who had no formal training it was a great appreciation. While I was basking in this glory…….I received a message from my friend Jai (I have introduced her in my blog titled “Helping others”). She said “Mam It is OK …..But Incomplete and something is missing.”

 As anybody else this criticism hit me hard. I was very upset. I asked her to be specific. She said 2 things:

1.      The flowers could have been bunched together to form a bouquet.

2.      You should have put some background color.

She continued saying “you have to improve Mam, so what if you are not formally trained. You have been always advising your students that …Constructive criticisms leads to constructive progress. I want you to improve your sketches mam…..yes you can do it.”

Incidentally Jai is a skilled artist….

I asked her for suggestions she just said “use your creativity mam”

Oh my God what a Challenge. I for a moment thought did I do the right thing posting it in the social network. I realized I had to meet Jai’s expectation now. No other choice.

I could not meet her first criticism but managed to meet her second criticism. The corrected picture is given below.

The message I learnt:

1.      The youth are intelligent and do not ignore their constructive criticism….hear them.

2.      When you tell the youth something, mind you they are also likely to reflect back the same.

3.      Just as you want the youth to improve; they are also genuinely interested in the senior’s improvement, and;

4.      The youth will not accept anything on face value.

Ah!  Later when I sent it to her after incorporating her suggestion she wrote the following words:

“Awesome it is..My tummy is full with happiness..Thank you so much maa.. Luv you ma..Jai”  

I was very happy…..At last Jai was satisfied with my picture.

Last word……You are watched always……Keep improving