Christine Kane just posted about the phrase “We’ll See,” and it is amazing. Why can’t I write brilliant posts like that? Anyway, I never really thought about the phrase before, but I have certainly used it. Well, that stops now… at least, that’s my intention. I won’t rehash the whole article. As always, I post it as a reference so my readers can go check it out, then come back here for my thoughts on it.

Have you read it yet? Okay, good.

First of all, I agree with the first point, that “we’ll see” is something parents say to shut the kids up when there are no plans to revisit that point in the future. “Can we go to the movies this weekend?” the child asks. “We’ll see,” the mom replies. But as the child quickly learns, that answer is as good as a “No.” But not really as good, because a stronger response would be to simply say no! I don’t want to say “We’ll see” to my (future) children when I mean no, because I don’t want them to be upset that I didn’t follow up on the presumed promise that the answer could still be a yes at some point.

I will add, however, that it’s not entirely bad, IF it is followed by clarification. If my child wants to go to the toy store and I am running errands before we have to be at a given place at a given time… In that situation I think it would be fine to say, “We’ll see if we have time after I do what I have to do.” In that case, “We’ll see” has turned from a “No” to a “Yes, but.” “Yes we can go, but only if you are good so I can get this stuff done quickly.”

Christine also says “We’ll See” is “protective armor.” If you really want something to happen, adding “We’ll see” shields you from the positibility that it might not happen… how depressing is that?! I pride myself on being a positive person. I look on the bright side, I have faith that everything will be okay, and I don’t let it get me down when things go bad, because they could always be worse. So why should I add a negative end to a hopeful statement?

Recently, I’ve said to my husband, “I might try selling my art on etsy, but we’ll see.” If I read into that, the translation is: “I would like to try selling my art on etsy, because I want to make art that moves people so much that they would actually pay me for my work. Putting a value on my work in this way values and validates me and my art. But that’s really scary, because what if nobody buys my art after I put it in my etsy store? Maybe I shouldn’t even go for it, I don’t want the let down of not selling anything. So I’m not going to put anything online. Maybe in the future I will change my mind but probably not.”

I want to stop thinking like that. I want to be brave and adventurous. I don’t want to limit myself because I’m afraid. So the first thing I’m going to do about this is: I am going to put my heart oil painting on etsy. Amazingly, it is still not completely dry. So I will wait until it’s fully dry, but then I will put it up for sale. Now I just have to decide what price to set.