Rather than try to create a masterpiece with every entry, I decided less may really be more on occasion. So here's a small point to ponder without my pithy observations intruding:
I can't know what the future holds. But my best hope is as likely to happen as my worst fear.
(That's paraphrased from an entry in Courage to Change - which I was flipping through in one of those wee-hours-worry-sessions last night. I can't remember the page or date I landed on, but the contents stuck.)
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Progress, Not Perfection
I’m told that blog writers need to make entries at least three times a week, if not daily, or... else. So, wanting to avoid ...else, I was tempted to never return and just let you think I (a) got bored (b) got busy, or (c) made the mistake of entering my son’s bathroom and am now in quarantine while doctors work to figure out what rare fungus is growing between my toes.
But I didn’t do that. I've showed up. I’m about to take it on the chin, explain the time lapse between entries, and let the chips fall where they may.
I haven’t posted because I’m a perfectionist.
Wait a minute, you say. If that’s the case, wouldn’t you be on top of this blogging thing? No. One of the first rules of perfectionism is: if you can’t do something perfect, there’s no point in doing it at all.
I come by this trait honestly. I share genes with a grandmother who used to run a gloved finger into the corners of the stairs in her farmhouse (the one that sat on a dirt-packed Nebraska road) and would, holding up a gray-tipped digit, tell her daughter, responsible for dusting, that she’d do well to live in a round house.
You see where this is going. Her daughter raised me. When visiting my house, my mother would ask—-and, while I sometimes exaggerate just an eensy-bitsy-teensy-weensy bit in these columns, this is the honest-to-God truth--“When’s the last time you swept under your refrigerator?”
You’re kidding me, right?
Okay. Six months ago. But, honest, I normally ignore the refrigerator, figuring I’m on par if I hit the places people can actually see.
Which I do with regularity, because my thoughts run along the lines of: As goes the direction of the nap of my carpet, so goes I. Or something like that.
Still, I’d felt I’d come a long way – nothing’s ever too badly awry around here, but I do let dog hair thicken along the floorboards, dust settle on the sills, and I try never, ever, never to enter my son’s bathroom, although I do experience an occasional slip. It's closer to the garage door, and I'm middle-aged.
So my behavior the other day caught even me by surprise. Our neighborhood had a large trash-pickup scheduled. One of those deals where you drag anything you no longer want to the curb, like a refrigerator whose ice machine broke the last time you moved it during your weekly cleaning.
The day before items could be set out, I was working at my home computer when a friend emailed to ask if she could bring over an old mattress for pickup. Sure, I typed. I won’t be home, but slide it into the garage and my son will take it out the next day. Fine, she replied, my sister will help me move it.
Arrangements made, I returned to work. For ten minutes. After ten minutes, I was in my garage, broom in hand. I didn’t care if my friend saw the state of my garage. She knows me. Too well to ever harbor, in even the very remotest, shadowy-est region of her brain, the idea I’m perfect.
But her sister... her sister doesn’t know me that well. And I was pretty certain, too, after I’d thoroughly examined every side of the matter in that ten minutes, her sister would arrive channeling my mother. She’d even come inside and check under my refrigerator.
So I swept my garage. And straightened a few storage shelves. Okay, and I did put some muddy shoes that had been sitting by the lawn mower since last summer on this stand by the washer so that if she looked over in that corner--which I knew she would--she’d conclude that’s where we always put muddy shoes before we clean them off. On every Tuesday, without fail. But I stopped with the shoes, and congratulated myself for not touching the refrigerator.
Just as I now, with this entry, pat myself on the back for again showing up here. I’ve experienced enough personal growth to allow you, and whichever one of you is channeling my mother today, to know that I haven’t blogged lately, not because I was trying to locate the can of Dr. Scholl’s, but because I just didn’t feel like it.
It’s all about progress, not perfection.
But I didn’t do that. I've showed up. I’m about to take it on the chin, explain the time lapse between entries, and let the chips fall where they may.
I haven’t posted because I’m a perfectionist.
Wait a minute, you say. If that’s the case, wouldn’t you be on top of this blogging thing? No. One of the first rules of perfectionism is: if you can’t do something perfect, there’s no point in doing it at all.
I come by this trait honestly. I share genes with a grandmother who used to run a gloved finger into the corners of the stairs in her farmhouse (the one that sat on a dirt-packed Nebraska road) and would, holding up a gray-tipped digit, tell her daughter, responsible for dusting, that she’d do well to live in a round house.
You see where this is going. Her daughter raised me. When visiting my house, my mother would ask—-and, while I sometimes exaggerate just an eensy-bitsy-teensy-weensy bit in these columns, this is the honest-to-God truth--“When’s the last time you swept under your refrigerator?”
You’re kidding me, right?
Okay. Six months ago. But, honest, I normally ignore the refrigerator, figuring I’m on par if I hit the places people can actually see.
Which I do with regularity, because my thoughts run along the lines of: As goes the direction of the nap of my carpet, so goes I. Or something like that.
Still, I’d felt I’d come a long way – nothing’s ever too badly awry around here, but I do let dog hair thicken along the floorboards, dust settle on the sills, and I try never, ever, never to enter my son’s bathroom, although I do experience an occasional slip. It's closer to the garage door, and I'm middle-aged.
So my behavior the other day caught even me by surprise. Our neighborhood had a large trash-pickup scheduled. One of those deals where you drag anything you no longer want to the curb, like a refrigerator whose ice machine broke the last time you moved it during your weekly cleaning.
The day before items could be set out, I was working at my home computer when a friend emailed to ask if she could bring over an old mattress for pickup. Sure, I typed. I won’t be home, but slide it into the garage and my son will take it out the next day. Fine, she replied, my sister will help me move it.
Arrangements made, I returned to work. For ten minutes. After ten minutes, I was in my garage, broom in hand. I didn’t care if my friend saw the state of my garage. She knows me. Too well to ever harbor, in even the very remotest, shadowy-est region of her brain, the idea I’m perfect.
But her sister... her sister doesn’t know me that well. And I was pretty certain, too, after I’d thoroughly examined every side of the matter in that ten minutes, her sister would arrive channeling my mother. She’d even come inside and check under my refrigerator.
So I swept my garage. And straightened a few storage shelves. Okay, and I did put some muddy shoes that had been sitting by the lawn mower since last summer on this stand by the washer so that if she looked over in that corner--which I knew she would--she’d conclude that’s where we always put muddy shoes before we clean them off. On every Tuesday, without fail. But I stopped with the shoes, and congratulated myself for not touching the refrigerator.
Just as I now, with this entry, pat myself on the back for again showing up here. I’ve experienced enough personal growth to allow you, and whichever one of you is channeling my mother today, to know that I haven’t blogged lately, not because I was trying to locate the can of Dr. Scholl’s, but because I just didn’t feel like it.
It’s all about progress, not perfection.
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