That Time I Utterly and Completely Failed and Caused a DISASTER! (Almost.)
Countless descriptions exist for personality types. Some of us are “high strung”; others are “low key.” We can be “linear,” “drivers,” or “random creatives,” etc. etc.
For those of us parenting pre-teens and teens we may even see some of them going in and out of these various personalities over and over again in the same day. Sometimes even in the same HOUR. (Some of you understand what I am saying there.)
Of course, as Christians, we never want to use our personality type as an excuse for lovelessness. (“I’m an introvert, so I don’t introduce myself to people at church on Sunday morning.” Uh. No no no. That’s not the way it works. We introverts just have to overcome our comfort zone and get on out there and say hello. It may FEEL like it will kill us, but it will not. And it is the right, appropriate, and loving thing to do.)
We also never want to take our propensities for granted and be slothful about using our gifts for God’s glory and love of neighbor. (“Oh! I’m super comfortable talking on a stage or writing/blogging, so I’m just going to give you my FIRST DRAFT off the top of my head thoughts.” Again. No no no. Excellence takes effort. Anything worth doing takes concerted effort. And you may not think that your audience can tell when you are “phoning it in, as it were,” but your real-life friends, your thoughtful readers, and especially your editor (!), are all keenly aware when you slap us with your “top of the head / no carefully edited blather.”
We know and you know that you can do better. So please hold the draft; give it a little time; put in a little review; and then bless us with your ready-for-public-consumption-insights. We are eager to read them!
On the flipside, I would now like to turn my attention to the super-duper-OVERLY-diligent people—especially pre-teens and teens, but let’s go ahead and stretch the application into adulthood too …
Let’s talk a bit about people of excellence who take their stewardship duties so seriously as they strive to do all things as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23), that all too often, they paralyze themselves into doing NOTHING because they take things WAY TOO FAR in the ol’ “Gotta Get This JUST RIGHT mindset.
Sometimes this is described as “perfectionism.” The bible calls it “The Fear of Man” (Prov. 29:25). We can say we have “low self-esteem” or are bound by “peer pressure” such that we simply cannot imagine putting ANYTHING we do “out there” where people are going to crush it. Criticize it. Or even worse—just ignore it.
Oh, friends. The dark alley of obsessively-demanding, unrealistic, soul-crushing, adrenaline-induced and adrenaline-inducing, FEAR is the exact SNARE that Prov. 29:25 warns us about.
A few months ago, I tiptoed way too close to that snare. It wasn’t pleasant. Here’s what happened:
“Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! OH NO!” I whispered into my eleven year-old daughter’s ears as we had a brief break in the green room backstage of a formal piano recital for a Rhodes Scholar pianist, wherein my only job was to turn pages.
“Did you see my COMPLETE AND UTTER FAILURE during the Bach piece?!”
“Um, no, Mom,” Sophie replied. “I have no idea what you are talking about. Everything in the entire recital, but especially the Bach, went off without a hitch. It was lovely. Complex and relaxing. Steady and surprising. All of the things we both enjoy about Bach. So … to what are you referring?”
“OK. Well. Here’s the truth. I’m mortified to admit it, but … there was this terrible D.S. al Coda that wasn’t clearly marked and, even with all of the practice I did before the recital, under the stage lights, I didn’t see it until MEASURES before the page turn so I wasn’t PERFECTLY standing and 100% ready for a smooth turn like I always try to be.”
“Did you make the page turns OK?” Sophie asked.
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“So if I’m understanding you correctly, Mom, what you’re saying is that you ALMOST had an error, but you DIDN’T because you made the page turn just fine. The musician played without a hitch. No one in the audience had any idea that anything was even at risk. The ‘utter, completely disastrous failure’ was avoided and the only person who even had an inkling of a possible problem was you. Is that right?”
(Chagrined) “Yes.”
Sophie’s compassionate, but spot-on look was all I needed to begin to laugh even at myself.
You see, when we equate a “near miss” with a “complete and utter fail of abject DISASTER,” we are pretty much guaranteeing a miserable life for ourselves and for the people around us.
Sometimes we really do blow it! And when that happens, we need to address it. But flooding our hearts (inner man) and bodies (outer man) with crushing adrenaline and soul-annihilating pain over something that MOST people didn’t even notice? Someting that didn’t even happen? That’s just wasted energy.
Let’s learn to be as kind to ourselves as we are to others! Please! Try to give yourself a break this day. Work had. Be diligent. But don’t allow the bondage of perfectionism enslave you, OK?
Life is far too complex. And you are far too precious!
I’ll close with an encouragement from 1 Thessalonians 5:
“Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and do work with your hands …
Be at peace among yourselves. Admonish the idle. Encourage the fainthearted.
Help the weak. Be patient with them all.
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”
(Excerpts from 1 Thess 5:12-24, ESV)