Nothing Wrong With A Solid B

Everything is not going to be perfectly-done all the time. This post, for example - I just spent a rather embarrassingly long time trying to figure out how to start it before I threw up my hands, said "to heck with it" (maybe I used different words there ...), and allowed it to start right here. And you know what? That's okay. We're here now, anyway.

It's something I've always struggled with - if I'm going to do something, I want to be a complete rockstar at it, and often I am! But sometimes I'm just not. Gift-wrapping, for instance - mine will always be at least a little bit off, with a wonky bow. Also, cooking rice - even in a rice cooker I end up with as much sticky mess as usable rice. I could seriously go on and on here, but that would be a little silly. The point is, it is also silly to expect oneself to be good at absolutely everything.

I know I'm not alone in this, either. I'm not going to get into the psychology of it, I think that's a little unnecessarily deep for our purposes, and anyway I don't know if it even matters how we all got here. The most important thing, as far as I'm concerned, is that we give ourselves permission to not be completely amazing at everything all the time. Maintaining that level of expectation for yourself is exhausting, no? Relax a little. Your world will not fall apart because you're getting B-level results on something.

Because here's the thing: no one notices except you. Really. No one can tell that your eyeliner is a little asymmetrical. No one realized that you put a little too much mustard in the deviled eggs. Remember that day you didn't catch that you were wearing mismatched socks until you took them off that night and then you wondered why the hell nobody told you? That's because nobody noticed! And do you know why? Because they were all too busy worrying about what everyone else was thinking about whatever they thought they'd done a crappy job at just then. That might be one of the worst sentences I've ever written, but in the spirit of this piece I'm leaving it in! I'm learning right along with y'all!

It should also be stated that anyone who would genuinely judge you for not being perfect is frickin' toxic and not someone you want in your life. For real. But you knew that, right?

So, yeah. Get a little messy! Let yourself fail a little bit. At the very least you'll have had a learning experience, whether it's that you've learned what not to do next time or you've learned that you don't actually care all that much. Either way, you know a little more than you did before.

Feel-Good Friday tomorrow! Already! Has this week been crazy-fast for anyone else, or is it just me?

- Sarah