Every time I think I have my perfectionism conquered, I get a reminder that it has deep and persistent roots in my psyche.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I came to my laptop tonight – a little later than I prefer after two very long days – only to discover two things that immediately triggered my perfectionism:<\/p>\n\n\n
1) I had forgotten to hit publish last night after I wrote here. Such a silly and avoidable oversight.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 -So I had to remind myself that I succeeded in my \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 commitment to write every day, I just hadn’t published. (Still bothers me, though.)<\/p>\n\n\n
2) I found an email that showed my first 5 page paper had been graded and it was an 85%. It is so crazy that after all these years I still see A+ as the only legitimate goal and anything short of that as a type of failure! I even lecture my honors students about the dangers of this way of thinking, but here I am.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 –\u00a0So I had to remind myself that it was my first paper after decades of being on the other side of the teacher’s desk and that I undoubtedly had much to learn about producing doctorate-level work. (Still bothers me, though. And I haven’t brought myself to look at the specific feedback yet.)<\/p>\n\n\n
Upon reflection, it strikes me anew that perfectionism is such a handicap. It can stop me before I even get started. It can discourage me when I really need to keep going. And much worse than that, it can keep me from admitting – to myself and the world – just how fallible I am.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
And, really, how can one be an authentic believer while being fundamentally unable to admit fallibility?<\/p>\n\n\n
Can’t I just be content with being the clay jar – and even glorying in that fact – so that it becomes clear that the only truly exceptional power in my life belongs to God and not to me?<\/p>\n\n\n
[And, yes, I see how I am now beating myself up for not perfectly overcoming my perfectionism. \ud83d\ude09 I am going to bed! His mercies will be new in the morning.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every time I think I have my perfectionism conquered, I get a reminder that it has deep and persistent roots in my psyche.\u00a0 I came to my laptop tonight – a little later than I prefer after two very long days – only to discover two things that immediately triggered my perfectionism: 1) I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8823,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8822\/revisions\/8823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}