Okay, maybe not

Maybe I do have a few posts I can write and "embargo" during my vacation, so there's some activity here.

One thing I'm thinking about, one thing that struck me last Sunday, is something that was said in church. There was a discussion in the sermon about the things deep in our hearts that we need to try to eliminate in order to better see God and better love our neighbors- he used the image of the infamous "garbage barge" that traveled all over the place seeking a port in which to unload.

But one of the comments he made particularly struck me, about needing to get away from the idea of valuing ourselves based on our accomplishments. (Previously, he had talked about the error of valuing ourselves based on what we own, which of course, we all, as good Christians, nod at, because we understand how that's wrong even though some of us may do it sometimes).

But yeah. That struck me because it is a fault I sometimes have. How many times have I complained that I'm "wasting my life" because I'm not devoting more of my time to research? Or how many times do I bitterly wish I had written some kind of popular book (a la the Yarn Harlot), because then I'd feel like I'd "done something" with my life?

(Part of that is, I confess, a bit of jealousy - I look at people, like a particular knitting designer who is BOTH a singer-songwriter and a pattern designer, and I think, "she has fans in TWO media" and then I feel a little sad because I don't really think of myself as having "fans." And I know: I shouldn't CARE, I should care about doing the right thing by people, and part of the reason I don't always have adoring throngs of students is that my expectations are high and I enforce the rules and come down hard on things like plagiarism. But sometimes I think, in a grass-is-always-greener way, that it would be NICE to do stuff like designing for a living.....oh, I'm sure it has its awful parts as well, but it's so easy to see how "pretty" it is when someone just shows the nice or romantic parts of it)

I wonder sometimes if this is a lesson I learned from school; I didn't have a lot of friends and the main way I got attention was by being good at stuff, and I wonder if that taught me somewhere along the way that my worth is tied up to 'what have you done lately?' but I know it's something I struggle with. At my best, I can push it all away and say "I have worth because I am a PERSON." but at my worst I am running around in golden-retriever mode trying to make everyone happy so they will like me because I get in this mental loop where I feel like people will only like me if I'm doing stuff for them....