Be Real

I recently started reading the blog Single Dad Laughing.  The writer, Dan Pearce, shares his life experiences and insights on a variety of interesting topics, including his failed marriages, fatherhood, religion, etc.  I've been going through and reading his "All Time Top Posts" (there are so many good ones) and I came across one called "The Disease of Perfection".  It pretty much left me in tears.    

He talks about the tendency we have in society to strive for perfection and to portray ourselves as perfect to others when we all know that perfection doesn't exist. The problem with striving for perfection is that when we inevitably fall short we are extremely hard on ourselves.  Sometimes we even give up on trying.  We often have an "all or nothing" attitude about our imperfections.  

I've been thinking a lot lately about some of the issues I personally struggle with, one being the tendency to compare myself to others. I am especially bad at this when it comes to seeing other mom's. I constantly catch myself thinking things like, "Oh she's so perfect, she has the perfect body and her house is always clean and her kids are so well-behaved" and blah blah blah.  Then I look at my own life and how insecure I am about my body and how my house is always a mess and how my kids can be so naughty and frustrating sometimes and how I lose my temper way too much. Then I get depressed and down on myself.  Or I get anxious about needing to lose weight or stress about having a clean house or stay awake at night worrying about my kids and whether or not I am raising them right.  And then I'm miserable.

I think this has gotten even worse with the increased popularity and availability of social networking sites and blogs.  We all put our best foot forward, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it causes us to compare ourselves to one another. It makes us think that everyone else is perfect, when the truth is, no one is. And yet we think we're alone in our struggles. The other problem is how easily we all judge each other without knowing the whole story.  And I will admit, I have been guilty of that too.  But thankfully because of different experiences I have had the last few years, I have developed a lot more empathy and understanding for people who I may have judged previously because now I know what it's like.  And it gave me a big ol' slice of humble pie. The tendency we have to judge each other just makes the quest for perfection even worse because we don't want anyone to judge us. It's a vicious cycle!  

Here is an excerpt from Single Dad Laughing's post:

"We live in communities where people feel unconquerable amounts of pressure to always appear perfectly happy, perfectly functional, and perfectly figured. 'Perfection' is much different than perfectionism.....'Perfection' is a hideous monster with a really beautiful face. And chances are you’re infected, at least to some degree. The good news is, there is a cure.

Be real.

Embrace that you have weaknesses. Because everyone does. Embrace that your body is not perfect. Because nobody’s is. Embrace that you have things you can’t control. We all have a list of them."

I've decided that from here on out I'm going to strive to Be Real in my relationships. To be honest with myself and others about my shortcomings, to have a non-judgmental attitude, to STOP comparing myself to others and STOP caring so much about what other people think.  If you are reading this and we are friends, I want you to know that you can be real with me too.  And I won't judge you. If anything, it will probably make us even closer as friends.

I'm also going to remember to.....

There's nothing wrong with wanting to improve and become better.  The key is to remember that perfection doesn't exist and instead we should seek to progress.  To try and be a little bit better everyday. And if at times we fall short, that's okay.  We'll try again tomorrow.  As we strive to be more real in our relationships, I have a feeling that others will start to feel like they can be more real too.  And this can take our relationships to a deeper, more meaningful level.

As a way of striving to be more real in my life, I've decided that I will do a periodic blog post on some of the ways that I am imperfect in my life. Its scary and a little embarrassing to think about, but hopefully it will help me to come to terms more with my own shortcomings, and to realize that it's okay. And hopefully showing a little bit of vulnerability will help you (the three people that read this blog, lol) to feel better about your shortcomings too. For this first post I will share a picture of a very embarrassing part of my house that I try to keep hidden at all costs. No matter how much I try and no matter how many times we move, I always have one of these in my house.  We call it "The Scary Pile".  

It's basically that place where all of the odds-and-ends accumulate.  If you're not sure where to put it, it goes there.  Every so often it gets bad enough that we (my husband or I) go through and clean it out and it's clean for about 3 minutes.  But then it inevitably piles up again. *Sigh*

Here's to keepin' it real!