So what do we do in this world where it seems so many of us are “dissatisfied”? How do we best raise our kids to not be? I was talking with a friend the other evening and she was saying she worried that I was too hard on myself/dissatisfied. My reply was “I’ve been this way since I was a kid.” I then spent the rest of the evening trying to ponder as far back as I could to where it started. I was unsuccessful.
Really the more I thought about it, it wasn’t like I was going to pinpoint a place in time. Deciding that time that so and so teased me or that time I got 9th at a swim meet and then I buried my head and worked for the next 3 years to be the best swimmer I could doesn’t change where I sit today. It’s just a part of the narrative.
I’d really be better off looking at it in revere. Here I sit, mostly unsatisfied. What are the things that I think matter and will changing them make any difference or will I just pick another thing to beat myself up over. And again, what can I do to mitigate my kids facing this?
I believe that people in general are competitive with themselves. We tend to know the things we need to improve upon, yet we mostly don’t do a lot about it. This causes friction. Friction causes discomfort until you get used to it. Then a state of pseudo acceptance lowers like a fog. Then you’re unsatisfied for 33 years. I mean this kind of sarcastically. I may have been unsatisfied for 37 years.
You’ll be happy to find out that I have no answers. One day I got the ole pencil and paper out and sat their looking at an empty page for 20 mins while trying to make a list of the things I’d want to change to alleviate some of this pressure I place on myself. I kept coming up with things too ridiculous to write down. Not that they weren’t obtainable, but that there was a ton of them and each one of them required me to be damn near perfect every single day.
Back to the drawing board.
I say things like “You should celebrate your wins.” And “give yourself some credit.” I mean it too. Just not for me. Every once in a while I’ll stop and say “you’ve been a part of creating some pretty cool things.” and then I’ll follow it directly with “but not as cool as it could be.” Or I’ll say “that’s just what I expect of myself.” And the process continues.
Like a lot of things, there is no clear path out of this. It’s complicated. I think for me the one thing that makes me feel good about the work and things I do is the level of follow through I achieve. I tend to get things done in a whirlwind at the deadline under extreme duress. There’s usually not a whole lot of celebrating that.
I feel the best when I of all things, I make incremental gains and check things off of lists. Like stacking bricks (I clearly like this analogy). I love making lists. Sometimes. So maybe this is a little step to daily satisfaction. Ticking things off. Progress over perfection.
Aiming for perfection is a sure way to dissatisfaction.
But I still want perfection.
#hugsandhi5s
