Have you ever taken credit for others work? For something you didn’t do? For something that wasn’t yours?
I know I have…
In fact, I’ve never admitted the following story to anyone…ever. So here we go.
That shoe wasn’t mine. Yet I took it home and pretended that it was mine. I took credit for it. My teacher and my parents thought it was gorgeous. But the stark truth is that it wasn’t actually my work.
I’m talking about a clay model of a shoe…
Now to my defense, when I grabbed that shoe, I honestly thought it was mine. After all, it had the Nike swoosh on it and it was a high top. And while those two characteristics of a clay shoe didn’t necessarily thin the pack or narrow the options, when I grabbed that shoe, I was convinced it was mine.
Okay…I wasn’t fully convinced, since there was another shoe on the table that had the same characteristics. But surely, that ugly thing wasn’t my creation. I was definitely more talented than that. After all, doesn’t baking clay get rid of all the imperfections?
It wasn’t until another student went to the teacher, and I overheard him describe what his shoe looked like, that I realized I had taken the wrong one. But at that point, it was too late. I had already committed. And I didn’t want to say anything.
So I just kept the shoe, took credit for it, and brought it home.
While that might seem like a silly story, it revealed something about my heart, and the condition of the human heart.
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