THANKS FOR SCREWING UP

“Thanks for screwing up”; those are words that would normally be accompanied by a whole host of frustration, shame, guilt and maybe even a continued argument. I’ve heard these words more times than I’d like to admit. The truly sad thing is that the only person I ever heard them from was myself. I was always the big kid, both height and weight so I grew up with a lot of insecurities about my size and usually coped with hit by being the first to joke at myself so that there wouldn’t be any room for others to take the first shot; that one always seemed to hurt the most if it came from someone else. Because of those insecurities I was hyper critical of everything I did, I felt as if I had to be perfect so as to not draw any additional attention to myself. My thought was that if I could say the right things, do the right things and just all around be unnoticeable that I would be able to avoid the pain of others' ridicule. As we all know that type of performance is unrealistic and unattainable, and I failed at achieving it. I didn’t fail because I was less capable than all of my peers; I failed because no one would have succeeded in that endeavor. All of my friends were just as goofy, awkward and stupid as I was, but I only cared about my perfection not theirs. I used to say to myself on the regular, “was to go idiot, thanks for screwing that up” I would beat myself up, inevitably making me feel worse and leading to more screw ups and further personal flagellation. This trend continued into adulthood, I mean it’s not like my insecurities magically disappeared when I turned 18 or when I graduated from college or got married or became a dad; see a trend forming here? The problem now was that the stakes were higher because my responsibilities increased in their importance to others. I spent many nights wondering if I’d ever get it “right”, and even more nights trying to define what “right” was. Right was such a moving target depending on the day, the situation, the people I was around or the emotional state I was in. No wonder I was unable to ever attain it. Me and my favorite phrase went through Grad school, marriage, fertility treatments, labor and delivery, career changes and every other phase of my adult like. I honestly don’t know what changed for me, but there was a point in my very recent past, where I began to start accepting little parts of myself; even the screw ups! That’s not to say that I’ve become complacent and stopped trying to change, I am still trying to work at being better every day my feet hit the floor. What changed for me was the anxiety over “what if I’m not perfect in, fill in the blank?” If I had to pick one theme or phrase to characterize the last 15 years of my life it would be that “what if I’m not perfect in….”. Now, I’ve accepted the reality that I’m not going to be perfect in those situation and endeavors, and if anyone in my life is expecting perfection then they have an unrealistic expectation and they need to adjust and we need to set attainable goals and if that’s not acceptable, then I know that’s a situation I need to remove myself from asap. I’ll give someone my best effort and 110% but I’m human and I’m going to make mistakes and have failures. When you change your perspective in that way you start to see your mistakes or failures as opportunities to learn rather than ammo to beat yourself up with. As I was doing my 5 Minute Journal this morning one of my gratitudes was “My Screw Ups”. I am grateful for all of my screwups because they’ve made me who I am today. Do I wish that some of them hadn’t happened? Maybe. But what if they hadn’t happened, would I be the person I am today, in the situation I am today and have the things and people in my life that I have? It’s kind of the It’s a Wonderful Life scenario right, would my life be completely different and unrecognizable to me if I hadn’t made the mistakes I made in my past? So rather than agonize over and ruminate on all of the things I could’ve done different and better, now I appreciate and recognize those things as the molding and shaping experiences that they are and thank God for using all of those to make me who I am with a unique perspective that He can use in some way to help and impact others in a positive way. So, thanks for screwing up.