Thought Cookie: Edition 25, Vol. 3
I recently was taken down by my own standards.
At the time this happened, I was sick, but half-denying I was sick. I was emotionally spun out, angry, frustrated, sad, crying, sniffling, sneezing, working hard and wound up.
I was in a fight with my husband (he didn’t see it as a fight, but I was in a fight-picking mood, so I did).
I was not speaking to another living soul.
I was hoarse, and coughing and blowing my nose every few minutes as I tapped, tapped, tapped and clicked, clicked, clicked on my computer with righteous indignation as I worked.
My eyes were threatening to swell shut and my clenched jaw was working to vaporize my molars.
It was ugly.
And these were only the external realities.
The internal realities were much, much worse.
Here’s what I think the inside of my heart and head looked like….
I didn’t really get a hold of myself for about 24 hours.
And it took another 48 before I would allow myself to peel the onion that was this particularly low point.
What was at the sloppy center of this low point, was, interestingly, my own standards.
When I say I have high standards, I mean towering. When I say standards, I mean harsh expectations.
High standards can be seen as a cause for celebration. But in my case, I am starting to see them more as a caution.
I sometimes say I am a recovering perfectionist. I even coined the term “excellentist” as a healthier fallback position.
But that’s just bullshit repositioning, which I am good at, but in this case, does not serve me well.
Growing up, I had two amazing role models. One was my mom. One was my dad. They were both excellent human beings who played distinct roles in our family. My mom nurtured our family in all the ways a mom should: emotionally, spiritually, physically. My dad nurtured our family in all the ways he should: financially, emotionally and spiritually. My mom was a great success in her endeavors, and she was also beautiful, kind, generous, creative, an amazing friend, and a contributor to our community. My dad was a great success in his endeavors, too. He had a successful career, provided incredibly well for his family of four, made our dreams possible, enjoyed his life, thought deeply, cared deeply and loved my brothers and I and my mother like the sun loves the earth.
They had these distinct roles.
The standards for each of those distinct roles became mine. In one person. Two sets of standards. And just me.
Since I co-support my family with my husband, and I also co-support our children and home and family with my life, I want to hit those marks in both regards. And I want to achieve my personal goals. I am driven.
But I am only one, flawed, person. With expansive capacity. But capacity nonetheless, ie, the maximum amount something can contain.
I’ve had this conundrum since I was little: I wanted to do it all, feel it all, experience it all, and miss out on nothing. I wanted to have an ever-expanding capacity and adhere to the highest standards. Paradoxes. Impossibilities. Traps.
Everything has its cost.
And I know this because even though I had these great parents, there were costs both of them bore to achieve what they did. Tradeoffs. They reminded me of this growing up. And I saw the costs, up close and personal. In gritty detail.
It’s jagged and gut-wrenching for an achiever like me to be in a less fruitful season.
In this season, it’s windy, and the air is gritty so I can’t see well and the ground is gravelly and uneven and my knees are scraped up and I hit my elbow hard on the way down.
In the dirt, I wonder if I’ll ever find a smoother path. I wonder if I have what it takes to get there. I wonder how long this is going to last.
So many of us are in seasons of crucial change. We are changing our professions, our directions, the shape of our work, the look of our families, the rhythm of our days. And our world transforms as well, shape-shifting overnight and rearing up with ugliness and bigotry and violence.
I realize in this critical space, we all tend to re-examine and fall back to old stories, old standards, to try to make some sense of the swirl.
And yet, that’s not necessarily the best path to take.
I must fight the instinct to go back to my high standards and apply them mercilessly to where I am and where I “should be.”
I must look at those standards, honor them, then set them on the shelf like once-triumphant awards.
They are gifts, not mandates. They are models, not machines.
And we’re all making this up as we go along.
BONUS CONTENT for my LOVELY READERS
2 Minutes of Thoughtful Baking - Writing Prompt
Instructions: Break out your journal and favorite pen, set a timer for two minutes and express something deep.
Write about a standard you have for yourself. It might be a standard you have for work, for your home, for your appearance. Explore where this standard came from. Determine who set it. Does the standard serve you? In what ways? If not, why not?
Did this Thought Cookie hit on something true for you?
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