Day 14.

Day 14. What Am I Afraid Of?

What am I afraid of? Hmm. I'm afraid of a lot of things. I'm afraid of peas, killing someone on the road, ticks, empty coffee mugs...

Okay, okay, so you wanted a serious reply.

I am afraid of failure.

I don't know why it is that I grew up such a perfectionist. It's like an inner battle that goes on inside my head. Half of me argues that it's okay to mess up and learn and grow and be changed throughout life. The other half of me argues back that failure is just not acceptable. I have to be perfect at whatever I do.
"Why? Why is it not acceptable?" asks 1st half.
"It just isn't." replies 2nd half.

It's the way I'm built. I have this inner system where if I didn't force myself to stop and focus on relaxing, I would work until I killed myself. Particularly in school. I stress so easily over school because I feel I have to prove myself somehow. I have to be a perfect student. And the sad thing is, it's not so much that I feel I have to prove my worth to the world...but to myself. Failure is the equivalent of less than perfect to my mind. Failure to my mind means I am not good enough.

But then my sensible side asks me, What is perfection?
Beautiful things aren't always perfect. I see that all around me. In fact, I make a point of trying to see beauty in the everyday things...things that don't seem, originally, to be "perfect".

Being a perfect student doesn't mean straight A's. It means, I try my best and learn. It means, gaining the knowledge I need, without obsessing about it. It means not putting school first in my life. The failure isn't when I get a low grade. The failure is when I put school above my relationships, when I put it as first in my life. I'm not a failure if I don't get that 4.0 GPA. I am a failure when I push myself to the point of stress because of school, when I could be doing something better in this world.

Failure isn't the lack of perfection. I am always going to be imperfect at something, no matter how hard I try. The failure is when I allow stress, school, perfectionism to rule my life.

God loves me, as imperfect as I am. He doesn't care about my grades. He defines me, not my grades...and if He defines me, then I do not have the need to prove anything to myself.