We deserve better.
This is the kind of post that isn’t clever or neatly packaged with succinct thoughts and easy metaphors. It’s probably not even punctuated correctly. But it’s on my mind, and I feel like getting it out there, so here it is.
I’m a big goal setter, but I rarely follow all the way through –ambitious though I am, I get overwhelmed easily.
Goals for self improvement, for growing wiser and seeking enlightenment, lofty goals involving journaling and change and a greater relationship with myself…Look through the archives of this blog and you’ll see that these goals come to me, then they die.
I always want to be better. I am constantly comparing myself to others and feeling like I come up short. Which is normal, to an extent – but a lot of times I wind up feeling absolutely paralyzed by the sheer volume of BETTERNESS that I want/need to achieve. And part of the issue is clearly some kind of self-esteem something or other. But the other part is simple: I have somehow managed to surround myself with—and am therefore comparing myself to—a set of seriously amazing people.
My friends are smart, driven, creative and wildly talented. They are artists. Performers. They pour time and care into charity work for incredible causes. They teach the youth of America. The people around me are doing some truly great things. And it can be very easy to lose sight of the fact that these people like me, too and instead slip into my ever-critical mindset and ask myself how on earth it is that any of these people want to be around me, or how I could possibly ever hope to stack up well enough to deserve their attention.
The answer is that I can’t stack up—and that I’m not supposed to. I have to stop comparing everything about myself to everything about everyone else. We all do. Like, knock it off. The only person I can be is me—the best version of me. And I’ll never be all the way 100% the best Corley ever. There will always be room for better. That’s it. The way it is. So find a way to deal with it.
Instead of continuing the stupid habit of comparing and obsessing and inevitably pouting over all I’m not, I’ve decided on a simpler goal: to be the Corley that these amazing people deserve. The wife that Josh (who is obviously the best) deserves. The kid my parents deserve. The team member my coworkers deserve. The considerate, caring, accessible person that my friends deserve. Allow them to teach me how to be better, and then be better. Because they deserve it.
It doesn’t seem completely healthy though, does it? To constantly be upping my game based on what those around me deserve. I didn’t think so either, until I realized this next part: (It gets a little squishy, so stick with me.)
If I am stepping up my game, becoming the Corley that my loved ones deserve, I’m going to become the Corley that I deserve, too. I deserve better than to be picked on and criticized all the time. I know I do. So to be the me that I deserve, I have to stop being so nitpicky.
Stop beating yourself up, and be the you that you deserve. It sounds simple, but the idea helps me. And something kept nagging at me to post it here, so maybe this little idea can help you, too.
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