Si, se Puede!

Billie Sucher tells a funny and inspiring tale of taking up a new hobby over on Career Hub. I particularly love her description of the helpful sales clerk.

Asked the associate what tools and resources one would need if one wanted to start painting and one had zero, zilch experience in this skill area. She gave me a near-nasty look and said "Why are you gonna' paint if you don't know nothin' about it?" I offered a lame "why not?" response, only to wonder later why I hadn't quipped the confident "because I can" line. The Paint Associate (TPA) suggested that I start with "on sale" and "clearance items" so "you won't be out too much when you quit." Hmm. Quit? Clearly, she was ahead of me in the transition process.

As an ex-pat Brit, I am following England's progress in the World Cup. Most Americans don't care about football (or soccer as it's called here) but in other countries, it's practically a religion.

England football fans are a long-suffering bunch. Often touted as favorites for the final, we never actually do very well and it doesn't seem to matter how many superstars we have on the field, they always play like, well, like England.

So, despite the fact that the team has now advanced to the quarter finals, none of my friends back home are very enthusiastic preferring not to get their hopes up. Each win is greeted with responses along the lines of "well, they won, but they didn't play very well. It's only a matter of time."

By contrast, I recently found out that the entire country of Ecuador took national holidays to watch their games and all joined in with the chant "si se puede" which means "yes we can." When the team lost to England, Ecuadorians poured out onto the streets to celebrate how far their team had advanced before losing.

We England fans remind me of Billie's Paint Associate. I much prefer the Ecuadorian outlook. If only I knew how to adopt it!