Those Unattainable Standards We Keep Trying To Reach

It can be tiring. Trying to be the perfect person all of the time. I mean, we’re bound to let someone down at some point. Bound to mess up and make a mistake. Yet, still, we strain, and strive, to attain an image that we have in our heads of the kind of person we believe, is “it.” That perfect standard of being.

All we do is end up discouraged. Frustrated.

We feel like failures. Like we aren’t good enough for others. Like we aren’t good enough for ourselves.

Some of us go to the opposite extreme. We KNOW we will never achieve certain standards. So we figure, “why try?”  We don’t try to live up to any standards at all. We’re used to letting people down and we grow comfortable there. We figure that it’s just our ‘lot’ in life, to be the odd one. The outcast.

There’s got to be a medium road in there somewhere. Don’t you think? Can’t we relax the standard of perfection on ourselves, without giving up completely? Can’t we live at ease with who we are, while still striving to be better people?

I think so.

I know so.

I would love to be more comfortable in my skin and able to not worry about saying the ‘wrong thing’ at the ‘wrong time.’ I’d also love to not stress so much about what other people might be thinking of me. At the same time, I’d like to try to continue to better my weaknesses so I can feel good about myself. Maybe I won’t attain ‘perfect’ to others, but I can come pretty close in my own expectations by simply being the best me I can be. The key is learning to let the rest – go.

And that key can be hard to turn.

We don’t have to give up on ourselves. We don’t have to kill ourselves trying to be something we’re not. But we CAN learn to live comfortable in the traits God has given us, while feeling free to not stress ourselves over, what He hasn’t. What we aren’t.

We are who we are. Not in the sense that we should never try to polish up that ‘we’ that we are. Because let’s face it, some of us are a little rough around the edges! But we are unique. On purpose.

If only we can prioritize what really matters in our lives, and filter out the weeds that pull us down on a daily basis. If only we can find life in the middle.

On balanced ground.

How much more freeing that would be.