While I was cleaning house yesterday, I found one of my early attempts at making a Christmas ornament.
At the time I made it I felt it was inadequate and not pretty (maybe even ugly) and definitely not perfect; however, when I found it several years later (yesterday) I was blown away by how absolutely gorgeous it was.
I started thinking how very talented I am in a lot of areas.
And then I started thinking about why I always put myself down. My prevailing attitude appears to be “if its not perfect its total crap” and I cut myself no slack for something being my first attempt or an early attempt or an attempt to do something that I’ve had no training in or instruction about.
Then I started thinking about my family. I remember my father being critical of me once in my entire life, back in 1989 when I declared bankruptcy. He thought it was stupid and wasn’t shy about telling me so!
The rest of my family (maternal grandparents and mother) weren’t critical of me. HA! Only once a day, every day, all day long — to steal a lyric from a song written by Bill Anderson and recorded by Connie Smith.
The continual criticism and the rampant perfectionism of my mother and my maternal grandparents has affected everything I do or think about doing when I am not sure of my skills or abilities or when its something I’ve never tried before.
Also, my mother is very very jealous of my writing skills (she’s a published poet) and doesn’t miss an opportunity to put me down about them (poems don’t have to rhyme, your poetry is trite and derivative, why would you write prose about THAT, who cares what you have to say anyway etc etc).
I am going to hang this imperfect but totally gorgeous Christmas ornament somewhere where I will see it at least ‘once a day’ to remind me I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to do the best I can, and in my opinion my best is pretty damn good!!
