Controlled Consequence

Last night, while waiting for EJ's piano lesson to finish up, it became clear that some sort of snafu had occurred with the pick-up for the girl whose lesson is immediately prior. This young lady is a friend of ours, a few years older than our kiddo, and really a great kid, herself. She had her ballet class scheduled for 45 minutes after her piano lesson, and her mom and dad had arranged for a classmate's parent to pick her up on the way and shuttle her from one activity to the other.

As time passed, she did what she could. She called home, to see if there were any messages about this, since she didn't have her ride's phone number. She brought out her bag, and got herself completely dressed and ready, including doing her own perfect ballet bun (wow, I dream of that day). I asked if I could help, and we texted her mom, and then did some sleuthing on our neighborhood parenting board email list to send her ride (another mom I know from local kid activities) an email.

Because the side streets are barely plowed or salted in our neighborhood, we could assume for awhile that the ride's lateness was normal, but by the time EJ was done with her lesson, it was clear that something had gone wrong, and our friend would need some help. We had walked to the lesson, only one block away, so EJ's piano teacher (also a mom) and I made a plan—I would walk home with EJ to our car, and then give the piano teacher a call. If the ride had arrived, we'd just go home, if not, we would bring this girl to ballet.

In the end, the whole errand was (of course) no big deal, even given the roads, because all of these places---our home, the piano teacher's home, and the ballet school—are all in our neighborhood. The girl getting the help was very appreciative, and stayed remarkably calm, given that she wasn't sure what was going on, and was going to be late to class, despite her best efforts.

On the drive over, somewhere between pick-up, and when I got berated by a local mom with a stroller for temporarily blocking the cross-walk so that I could safely get our friend out of our car with all of her school/piano/ballet gear from the trunk, EJ began talking about what happens if you show up late to her class. "If you come really late, like more than 10 minutes, you have to sit out of all the barre exercises." Thinking of how the girl we were driving would feel being reminded of this, I just wanted to tell my kid, "EJ, for goodness sake, SHUSH! YOU AREN'T HELPING!" Instead, I just reminded EJ that sometimes, things are just out of your control, and you do the best you can, like our friend did today, and if you have to suffer consequences because of that...well, you can be confident knowing that you did your best, and you couldn't have made your outcome any different.

This really got me thinking, though. Sure, there are times that lateness is because of children. This is especially true when they are really little, and of course, have no idea of consequence at all; they just know that the best time to soil themselves is immediately after they have been washed, freshly diapered, changed, and put into their coats and hats to leave the house. It is also true that, some mornings, my school-age child moves so...so...slowly, as if her wake-up button has not yet been hit, but we are still asking her to down some honey-nut o's and put her homework in her backpack. Most of the time though—in most circumstances relating to timeliness—kids have very little control over their outcome. They can't gauge traffic to assess whether an earlier start time is needed, they can't make decisions over route if they do get into a mess, they can't control the speed of the vehicle, they can't speed up their siblings actions, etc. They are, in all senses of the phrase, "along for the ride."

I don't have a problem with kids learning that, sometimes, even if you do everything you can, you are late, and you miss out; if you show up late to a movie, you may not get in, or you may miss the critical beginning, for instance. Lesson learned. I don't entirely understand, though, how marking "tardy" for little kids, then making it impossible for them to be student of the month if they have tardies, makes any sense. I can see how, at ballet, once they are in the middle of an exercise, the best approach is to wait until the next one to join in, but I also noted from the anxious tone in my daughter's voice that she understood this to be punitive, not practical.

Then I started thinking more about our education system's zealousness for national test scores, and how our kids—kids that just get up, eat their cereal, brush their teeth, and then go to school and work hard—are somehow having to deal with consequences of wide-scale reform based only on outcomes, with pressure to "rise up" two grade levels to meet new common core standards "in time for the test," and less time during the school day spent in play/creative pursuits/any subject excluded from the tests (read: social studies or science). For the first time in the entire history of our kid attending school, this week she asked us not to send her back at the end of break, saying, "It is just so much work, and no breaks, Mom. We have silent lunches, because we are too chatty, and we only have short recesses most days, no other time to rest or do stuff we think is interesting."

I bet the lunch room is loud, with 30-40 kids in every class. I bet they are wound up, too, because they have to cram so much instruction into every minute of the day, leaving little time for letting off steam. And I bet that recess seems short, especially now that it is too cold to run around outside. What are we teaching kids about consequences? Sure, if you are chatty, you need to stop talking, but WHY are they so chatty? Is that because they are just naughty, non-compliant kids?

I know that some folks reading this, looking from the outside in, might take the hard line approach: kids should be working hard, and they should understand that life is difficult, and they can't be coddled or protected from every little hurt by their mommies. Fair enough. I wonder though, as college professors report that moms and dads are calling in on behalf of their 19-year old kids, asking for extensions to deadlines, or "second chances" on grades, if that is simply because those kids were coddled. I'm sure that is some of it, but watching my eight-year old kid struggle to complete 6-8 hours of multiple sheets of homework on a weekend—a kid who gets good grades and performs well-above grade level—tells me that parents and kids may be trained from the start to respond to work expectations that exceed reasonableness for a child's maturity, development, or organizational skills, and thus, require parental intervention just to comply.

If children have workloads that are beyond their ability to complete, and schedules that are beyond their ability to manage, and expectations that are external to their motivation, without any way to feel incremental success or failure based on their own thinking or creativity, why on earth would we think that we are developing ability to handle consequences in a real way as adults?

Developing a sense of capability comes from handling successively more difficult tasks based on appropriate developmental expectations, giving kids room to learn from mistakes without fear of punishment, and encouraging creative ways to solve problems and take on new challenges. It comes from freedom, which kids might call "play" or "rest" at school, but is really so much more. It comes from connecting action-to-reaction in a thoughtful way, and showing them, with choices within their span of control, how they can create better outcomes. Study = do better on your spelling test. Use manners = receive better service. Try something new and fail = learn from your mistake, and try again.

Last night, our friend handled the stress of not knowing how/when/if she was going to make it to her next activity beautifully, and I really hope that they did not give her a hard time when she got there, especially since there is no learning from being hassled about something you couldn't fix. Scratch that: in that situation, you can learn, "It doesn't matter what I do, if there is a problem, it is my fault." Please, let that not be what all these blasted "educational goals" are teaching our kids, because from my perspective, all those goals can do is discourage the belief that learning is something we can control, enjoy, and embrace for a lifetime, and is not based on outcome, but rather, on practice.

It's Called Self-Care

The Christmas tree isn't totally down, I'll admit it. I figured that I if I was doing the job, I could take my sweet time. This means that our living room currently looks like an ornament refugee camp.

Our holiday cards were never mailed, because they arrived so late due to printing problems, I didn't have any time to get them done during the festivities. 

I keep having that feeling that there is a bill that I need to pay, something that I missed, something I don't know about, despite looking over our bank account and credit card statement repeatedly. This shows me all the money we spent on this and that, presents and travel and food and general December merriment, and then I just feel more anxious.

January is the holidays' hangover.

The temperature is warming up, though, all the way to the thirties this weekend, meaning (hopefully, oh goodness gracious, hopefully) some of the streets will be better plowed and parking will become available again near EJ's school (yesterday's school pick-up was an exercise in madness, sans parking spots). We are planning an adventure with good friends to Eataly on Saturday, where they have a little piece of magic called a Nutella Bar. Yes, you read that right: a Nutella Bar, with many Nutella-laden items to chose from. And for my part, I have a lovely small pitcher of crêpe batter in my fridge, made during the polar vortex deep freeze, and am kindly doling out a couple of hot delicious crêpes to myself each day. 

I've come to believe that the optimal topping for a crêpe is simple: a little butter, a sprinkling of sugar, and fresh lemon juice. I've made a few like that this week, but this morning I conducted my own pre-party for this Saturday, and slathered some Nutella on my breakfast crêpe, my old favorite, a classic. It took me right back to Crêpes à Gogo, the best crêpes in Aix-en-Provence, found at a restaurant that is no more than a stall in a subterranean passage. I'd tell you that I served my Nutella crêpe with a healthy breakfast, but I'd be straight-up lying.

I know that January is supposed to be the month that we make healthy changes, going on cleanses (Have you seen this gem? Jamila, you rock my world.), and eliminate all those foods from your diet that packed on the pounds over the holidays. Does that really work with a hangover, though? I think not.

Later today, I'll begrudgingly finish the tree decoration take-down, and I'll probably contact our holiday card printer again about simply returning the cards that we didn't hand out. And no, I won't be eating a rich food at every single meal, much like the last week of December for many of us. Yes, I'll go to the gym. I'll eat veggies. I'll drink a flotilla's worth of fresh water every day. I am having crêpes, though, a couple of small, eggy, lacy delights ever day, until my January headache goes away.

Tree

I'm taking the Christmas tree down today, along with all the decorations. 

We left it up longer than usual—we always have it up for our New Year's Eve party, but typically have it down by the second or third. Despite the fact that we were all polar vortex shut-ins for the past week, and had the crates in which we store all our ornaments pulled up from our storage unit four stories down, I didn't lift a finger to put things away. I convinced myself I'd do it on Three Kings Day, the "official" end of the season, then watched that day float by, making soup and homemade bread instead.

Our home's living room, with its substantial 1915 mantel, pale green walls, and dark red rug and accents, screams to be decorated for Christmas. Snow outside, warm radiator heat inside, and the glow of lights and the sparkle of crystal ornaments—it is all kinds of pretty in December in our house.

After the new year, though, even decorations in their perfect domain start to look like they are out of place, like we just stuck a towel rack up next to the television, or have decided to eat dinner in our bedrooms and sleep on the table. I haven't left the tree up because I want to hold on to the feeling of Christmas any longer, I've left the tree up because taking down the tree is an annoying job.

I remember being a kid and ditching my mom about a quarter of the way through the task. She'd yell to all three of us kids, "Come on, get in here and help!" probably as she heard us fire up the Atari in the family room, and we'd whine and drag ourselves in and generally just be unhelpful enough to be allowed to leave for her own sanity's sake. We were real punks. When I think back, we weren't much better with decorating the tree before Christmas, either—it held our interest for about half the process, at best, or only until our favorite ornaments were up, having likely fought each other for prime branch position of our macaroni art.

 I received this beautiful oboe ornament for my birthday this year from my friend, Christina,
and I hung it up on our tree, front and center. My ornament is the winner! Ha, ha, ha!
I feel like an eleven-year old, who won the fight for ornament pole position.

The thing that no one tells you, but you learn as a parent, is that a lot of the time—most of the time—the stuff you didn't want to do as a kid, but can cajole your way out of through annoying behavior, is still stuff you don't want to do as an adult. The problem? You're the one holding the baton, and there are no other runners in the relay. You have to bring that thing over the finish line, while the rest of the team is already stretching out, drinking Gatorade, and getting ready for their next event. Sometimes they are cheering you on, but sometimes they have left the stadium.

If I were to put on a process engineering cap for holiday decorating, I'd have to say that 100% of respondents in our home find both putting up and taking down these decorations tedious. The fun factor for this activity, which could be exploited to make it more efficient and or more effective, is really only 20%, and is exhausted within the first 15-20 minutes of the task. That means that, before even one-third of the ornaments are placed, no one really wants to participate anymore—we all want the joy of completion, of course, we just don't want to have to keep untangling hooks from each other, or finding a sturdy enough branch for the heavy things. For my husband, who has to deal with me yammering about the straightness of the tree, the placement of the garland (that I can't reach, and rely on him to swing around the top), the symmetry of everything, I'm sure the fun factor is exhausted about 5 minutes in. Wait...he has to haul everything up from the basement three stories down. Scratch that: he has no fun factor. I guess I should feel lucky for my 20%.

"O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, how lovely are your branches…" when they are totally decorated, and it is December 24th, and we've just had a nice meal and a sweet bedtime story with our kid, and we are waiting for Santa to come, sitting near your glow, drinking something boozy. Putting you up and taking you down is not really fun. There, I said it. Where's the carol for that one?

Hey, dog, want to help me take down some ornaments?
Yeah, I didn't think so.

Epiphany

Several years ago, EJ received and read the book, Horrible Harry and the Holidaze. I don't know how often she looks at it now, but whenever we do a purge of her bookcase, I assume that little book will be put in the donate pile, but it's a sticky one for her, and she doesn't let it go.

I like a girl who likes a tattered old book, I have to admit.

Fast forward to this Sunday night, when we were all bundled up in our home, errands run, school (finally) cancelled for the next day, ready to face the polar vortex deep freeze descending on Chicago. At bedtime, EJ let us know that she was getting her slippers to leave at the doors—one at the front door, one at the back—so that the three kings and their camels could come leave her candy.

Candy? What candy? That kid was just given tons of candy in her stocking, and she's seen every single thing brought into this house for our big freeze stock-up. What candy could "the kings" possibly leave her with now, in our shut-in house? CRUD.

In pantry-desperation mode, I countered, "EJ, that's not really a tradition that we celebrate."

EJ: "I know, but I've read about it in my 'Horrible Harry' book. It works."

Me: "Yeah, but that's not something that we do. Our family, you know, we don't celebrate three kings day. That book is about everyone learning about each others' traditions, we don't all adopt every one."

EJ: "Got it. This isn't something we do. But I'm going to do it. It's my tradition—I leave out some walnuts and a bucket of water for the camels, and I get candy in my shoes. I might as well, try, right?"

Sigh. Stupid teaching her to be someone who tries new things and takes chances. Stupid, stupid parenting. But I like a girl who starts traditions, too, so we scrambled.

We convinced her that a clementine would be sufficient for walnuts + water, and put her to bed. Then, in an act of what may be called "practicality" by some, "incredible motherly martyrdom" by others, I went into the secret stash of peppermint dark chocolate truffles that Mike had given me, that I had hidden away before my chocolate-mint loving daughter could see, and left a couple in each slipper. I then put the slippers up, because I was not going to allow old-lady dog, Ada, to eat them, get sick, and make the whole "new tradition," a lose-lose-lose.

The next morning, I was awoken early to pleadings, "Mom, my slippers are missing!"  I advised her to look up, that the kings and camels probably put the slippers up where Ada couldn't get her goodies, and  she went on the hunt.

"I found them, Mom! It worked! I said it would."

By the time I woke up in earnest, the truffles were gone, with their empty red and white striped wrappers left on the coffee table to tease me. I realized that now, I could only pull out those truffles when she was asleep if I wanted to magic of her tradition to continue. Blurgh. No one likes limited truffle hours. Of course, this restriction made me want one right then and there, and throughout the rest of the snow day we spent together.

When I groggily asked her what she'd received, she said, "Oh, some peppermint chocolates. They're gone now. They were GOOD. What's for breakfast?"

Mike was already in the kitchen making oatmeal, but in my mind, I thought, "You can have my half-eaten camel clementine, kid. It wasn't a very good one, so the 'camels' rejected it after a few slices, and it certainly wasn't as good as chocolate peppermint truffles."

Stone Cold Never (Shakes Fist at Sky)

This morning, as I groggily woke up for the second time—I was first awakened in a start around 6:00 a.m. to a robocall from our schools, reminding us that there is no school today—I thought of Scarlett O'Hara. Specifically, I thought of her solemn vow to herself, featured in the clip below, and realized that if I replaced "hungry" with "freezing," she would have said it all.

You may have heard that the region where I live is currently experiencing what the meteorologists are calling a "polar vortex." Being trapped in a vortex never sounds good, right? That's straight out of Star Trek 101: don't get trapped in a vortex. Even a good vortex probably has a twist, like a candy vortex would make you sick, or a Utopian vortex would somehow leave you devoid of free will.  No good can come from a vortex.

With a current outside air temperature at a record-setting low of -13 degrees (and falling!), and a wind chill factor making it feel more like -30 to -40 degrees, this polar vortex makes my personal naughty list, and will not be receiving gifts from me next Christmas. 

The upside: school was cancelled, we are all here warm and safe (thank you, jobs that we can do from a home office), the power is still on (we lost our power in the blizzard a couple of years ago, and wow, that was some dark, cold, scary stuff), and I ground enough coffee for two days, in case the power does go out, and I have to go low-tech for caffeine.  Phones are charged, fridge is stocked, and according to my favorite mechanic, I could either try (or not try) to start our car occasionally today to keep the battery running, as they have no idea which tactic will make for a better chance that the battery won't be dead in time for school pick-up tomorrow. "It's never this cold here, try whatever strategy you'd like."

It never WAS this cold here. Hello, record books.

Yesterday, when school was still scheduled to be open today, but an optional excused absence for those who wanted to keep their kids indoors, the parents in EJ's class had a discussion about who was sending their kids in, and who wasn't. I was surprised at how many folks were planning to bundle their children up and bring them to school. I know that work constraints make this necessary for a lot of people, but beyond that, so many folks seemed to think it wouldn't be a big deal at all, while my brain kept screaming to me, "DON'T GO OUTSIDE!" Chicagoans are tough weather people, and I...well, I am doing what I need to do, but I now lack the "conquering the cold is cool" attitude that makes this a lot more fun.

 

I've been sick of this weather for awhile, and I've talked about it so much, it has become white noise, I'm sure. We are on the precipice of making a move, hopefully selling this condo, and extreme experiences like this one remind me we are on the right track. No, we aren't going to have polar vortexes every winter, but I realize: I don't ever want to be in a polar vortex, or any of its frigid cousins, again, even if it only happens once every ten years. My body no longer wants 20 degrees to feel relatively balmy—I want to live somewhere where 30 degrees constitutes a deep freeze, and we must bundle up in down jackets because we aren't hearty enough to take the cold anymore.

Yes, we could stay here, if we had the right opportunities, but if we stay here, we really do need a garage, a home on the ground floor or in an elevator-accessible building, and a generator. We also need to get me on a warm destination vacation around this time every year. I need an extreme cold-mitigation strategy.

Friends in Washington, DC, and California, you are reading this, right? You'll never be cheeky sending job openings my way: you'll be an integral part of my extreme cold-mitigation strategy. 

Regret, Redo, Recycle, Release

There's been an uptick lately in the chatter that surrounds me—conversations with friends, media, articles or stories I read—about living a life without regret. Even Khloe Kardashian, one of the "famous for being famous" family, has recently espoused the venerable theory of accepting all things that happen as meant to be, a gift, a part of who you are and your story, in light of filing divorce papers.

"Don't regret anything, everything that happens has a reason, don't miss any opportunities, live your life like it isn't a dress rehearsal, know that even the bad stuff makes your life meaningful..."

I could go on and on. I'm sure you've heard these things, too.

I don't buy it.

I think regret is really important. Recognizing sadness or disappointment about opportunities that are lost, choices that have panned out differently than we'd hoped, or relationships that are broken due to our own behaviors is truthful. It's vulnerable. It's the way we grow up and learn how to do more that works, less that doesn't.

In a lifetime of infinite choices, which is what so many of us have, frankly, how could we always make the right choices? When we look back on the whole of our stories, we may see how everything has come together, hopefully for the better, but to assume that every twist and turn in these stories must be looked upon with perfect contentment seems revisionist to me. It also seems dangerous. Regret reminds me that I hurt people along the way, or compromised my integrity. I want to remember those things. I want to feel the hurt of them. I want my wrongs to make me empathetic and honest, and less likely to hurt again.

I would never advocate spending your life looking backward, wishing everything could be different. Regret is important, but it must be followed up in order to be really useful, and not just sad or soul-crushing. If I were to describe my experience with regret, at its most raw and helpful, I would say that it is sadness attached to wishing. The critical piece, here, is that it is sadness—a feeling—and I have found that trying to live without acknowledging my feelings a) makes them bigger, b) makes them more powerful, and c) disables me from using them to learn, repair, or develop.

For example, I wish that I could have realized when my daughter was a baby that trying so hard to breastfeed wasn't worth it, that it would have been better just to bond with her and enjoy her, that she was well and truly the only baby I would have, and all that pain was an unnecessary waste of our time. I feel that sadness, but then I remind myself, "You didn't have hindsight to guide you. You made the best choices you could. You learned from the experience. You are okay now."

I wish I had developed a love of sport or fitness earlier in life, or maintained a physical or outdoorsy hobby from my childhood on up. I now understand the impact that could have made on my life, and I'm sad that I am now suffering the consequences of that loss. I feel that sadness, and I ask, "What can you do now to give yourself the experience you wish you'd had all these years?"

I wish that I could have closer relationships with some of my family. I feel that sadness, then I say, "You can't control how other people feel about you. I forgive myself for not knowing how to reach out in the best way, or for hurting those people without realizing it. I forgive them for hurting me, too."

Along with the "no regrets" culture is the "forgive and forget" practice, which usually implies, "forgive and never feel bad about or think about ever again."

I don't buy that, either.

I think the reason that we so strongly want to rebuke regret is that we don't want the sad feelings to keep coming up, but honestly, I am discovering more and more that if I just let them come up, and I actually acknowledge them, they go away more quickly, and I can gain insight more immediately. Some regrets come up over, and over, and over. If I'm ruminating, I'm in trouble, but if something pops into my head that I haven't thought about for days, months, or years, it doesn't serve me to pretend it isn't there, or to attempt to rewrite my history so that I push it aside. "What does that sadness need to tell me now?" is almost always my best approach.

Being present is so critical to being happy, and also being effective in the world. But can you be present if you are pushing away your regret? Regret can lead to discovery, which in turn, can help you to "redo" choices in your present, based on understanding the long-term impact of similar choices on your past. Regret can also spur you to recycle old scraps of opportunity, and fashion them into new, present opportunities yet to be seized. And at its best, regret can help you feel forgiving of yourself and others for making choices that were the best that could be made at the time, but which caused hurt or sorrow. You may always have that hurt come up as twinges of pain, again and again, but if you feel the sadness, you can then release it back out, and focus yourself on empathy and love in the present.

I want to live a life full of everything, including useful, thoughtful, and sometimes painful regret. That's something I have no regrets about.

How Low Can You Go?

Ah, the beginning of the new year, the season of starting fresh, setting new goals, and getting bombarded by weight-loss advertisements everywhere you look.

It's a magical time of hopeful self-loathing.

I believe that continually asking, "What can I do today to make my life better/healthier/happier/more balanced?" is about the most impactful act of kindness I can bestow on myself, and in turn, those with whom I interact. I also think that "big change seasons" such as the new year require some caution, particularly if you are like me, and you suffer from the most trying of imperfections: perfectionism.

Need to feel bad about your accomplishments? Here's perfectionism! Want more than you or those around you could ever physically/emotionally/spiritually provide? Perfectionism can help you with that. Want the satisfaction of knowing that, unless something is done exactly right, it isn't worth doing at all? Perfectionism is the perfect pursuit.

As a perfectionist in recovery, I have had one New Year's resolution every year since around the age of twenty-seven in order to heal myself: LOWER THE BAR. 

Yes, I want to be healthier—you might, too. Yes, I want to make more fiscally responsible decisions—you and I can both work on budgets this year, and be more secure for it. Yes, I want to set some ambitious goals and take the many tiny steps necessary to achieve them through out my year—I hope you have some of these things in mind, too.

What I don't want to do, though, is get paralyzed by expectations, or horrified by performance. For example, in terms of my health, I can meet with my nutritionist, go to the gym more, and do my best. At the same time, I cannot engage in a diet where I simultaneously eliminate five categories of food and require myself to go the the gym six days a week. That bar is too high, and it will only serve to make me more miserable once I drop the ball.

I know some people may read this and think, "Gosh, Kori, expect something of yourself! Take care of yourself! You can do big, amazing things in a year if you set goals and work hard!"

Yeah, I get it. I've been setting the bar low for so many years now, even an international limbo champion could not snake her way under it. Does this mean that I don't want to do better? Be better? Try harder?

I can only reply with this: if there was a meeting of perfectionists-anonymous, I don't think my testimony would be that of someone who, after abandoning the hope that things could always be "just so," decided she was just going to sit around and do nothing. Lowering the bar has helped me to move to a new city with my husband, support him through a PhD program, get a masters degree, take important risks, find meaningful work, get over the trauma of a difficult birth, develop empathy, raise my daughter, make new friends, strengthen my long-term friendships, and care for my marriage, ALL WHILE BEING MUCH HAPPIER.

In other words, it works.

For me, it always seems to come down to this: Expect Less = Get More.

My inner perfectionist fighting to get into my decision-making and run the show can't understand that kind of math—she tells me that unless I get it all exactly right, I can't be happy. The perfectionist always insists that the equation should be:

Expect Everything(Doing it Exactly Right x Never Making a Mistake) + Demanding the Same of Others = The Greatest Life Ever.

What can I say? My inner perfectionist has destructive delusions of grandeur. At my best, I tell her very sweetly to go lie down, and let her know I'll call her when I really need her, like when I'm frosting a cake, or trying to fold fitted sheets. At my worst, she runs amok for bit, making me tense and terse, until the irritated or hurt faces of my family members remind me that I need to get Polly Perfectionist out of the driver's seat. It's sad to recognize that, even as I hurt myself with perfectionism, I rarely take back the reigns until I know I've affected someone else, which hurts even more. The shame of this could certainly spark the creation of a perfectionist-based goal of never, ever letting it happen again, but I'll keep the bar set low, do my best, and take the time to recognize when and how it is getting better.

No matter how many times I am told by the computer/television/radio that I could look/be/feel/live like a different person in 365 days if I simply start buying/doing/believing in a product/service/activity, I will make no grandiose self-improvement plans to mark the beginning of 2014. As a recovering perfectionist, I will use this time, as always, as a reminder to limbo into each new year, with the bar ever lower (and happier)...and lower (and happier)...and lower (and happier)...knowing that I don't have to understand the inner workings of the "Expect Less = Get More" equation for everything to add up. At my limbo party, I have more fun stepping right over the bar, head high and shoulders back.