Can You Draw a Cat

Last spring I attended a presentation which was geared to encourage everyone to excel at their job. Not long after that, my job at the company was eliminated, so I no longer need worry about excelling there. But the speaker/presenter had us do a simple excercise. This is how it went.

Using your dominant hand, draw a picture of a house. We did. Now, using the other hand, draw a picture of a horse. Now, using your dominant hand, close your eyes and draw a picture of an airplane. Finally, using the other hand, draw a picture of a cat.

When the exercise had been completed, the speaker pointed out our behavior. For the most part, few shared their original drawing - the one with dominant hand and eyes open. By the time the fourth picture was drawn, most everyone WAS sharing their drawings. (I did not. I was kind of sitting apart and was not able to.) He claimed (probably accurately) that this was because in the final drawing we all felt on equal footing. We were the same. No one was "better" than us.

He told us that they had done an extensive study (all studies are extensive) in which four and five-year-old children were asked if they could draw a cat. Virtually every child said they could. Then they went to college universities and asked the same question of the students there. Very, very few said they could draw a cat.

The point - to me - was clear: we learn what we CAN'T do even more than what we CAN do. We seem to be born with the capacity to believe we are capable of anything and everything. Quickly, we are taught that is a lie. The truth is, there is very little we can do. And for those of us who grew up believing what we were taught, very little is done. The lucky ones are those who are too stupid to believe what they're being told. They go on to great things because they don't believe they can't. It just gets harder, that's all.

I think we can all be a lot more than we are. For me, that's easy, as I have never been anything. It is time to find that childlike faith which still lives locked away in some hidden recess of self-conception. What do I want to be when I grow up? An author. I can do that.

Can you draw a cat?