Someone I know posts stuff on twitter with the captions, "Shot..." "....and chaser" for two items that either contradict each other, are in some way related, or if the "chaser" makes the "shot" funny.
But anyway. Someone ELSE (Diann) posted the article I'm linking to on Twitter, and I think it's a reasonable "chaser" for the article I linked to the other day about "what if I want a 'mediocre' life":
Be encouraged, you're doing better than you think
(Two notes: there is one harsh word in the article. And the comments perhaps go a bit off the rails - this is apparently a faith-related site and there is discussion of how God was viewed in Old Testament times that winds up pretty much bashing the "backwoods southern Christian" and I find that kind of thing distasteful, even if I do disagree with the denominations that seem to over-emphasize the Old Testament God over the New Testament teachings)
Anyway. In short, the writer makes the point that everyone feels like they don't have it together - and that everyone is hurting in some way you can't see (And I know that).
Actually, one of the more useful comments on the piece noted: you are comparing your own blooper reel to everyone else's highlight reel, and I think that's true. I don't see what my colleagues do at the end of the day; I only see myself coming home and putting on flannel pajama pants with cartoon cats on them, and maybe eating Nutella straight from the jar with a spoon while I watch We Bare Bears and then I look at myself and go, "Mercy, this is NOT how a grown-up should be acting."
But how is a grown-up supposed to act? I only have my parents to judge from. They didn't wear juvenile-themed pajamas in the late afternoon, or watch cartoons, or eat Nutella. So I don't know. And maybe they were better at hiding their weaknesses from me so I got the idea that "real" grown-ups didn't seem to have any.
A sample quotation from the article: "All
this to say that we’re all a mess and no one is as together, happy, or
confident as we want ourselves to appear, so go easy on yourself when
you feel you’re not measuring up."
I dunno. On one level I find that a relief. But on the other it makes me sad - so everyone else is as messed up and self-doubting and worried about how they look to the world as I am? That there's really no one who has it together? I dunno....I guess I always kind of held out the hope that I would somehow finally "for real" grow up and actually have it together.
3 comments:
For whatever it's worth—I am 66, and I'm STILL waiting to feel like a real, bonafide adult. I have always felt as if I'm playing at being a grownup, and frequently congratulate myself (not aloud, so far) when I manage to successfully complete an 'adult' task: taxes, paying bills, getting the car's oil changed . . .
You aren't alone.
A friend's father was 64 when he died, and I remember him saying to me that he wasn't sure if he would ever grow up. I think that if you had kids you most likely would have to be the grown up (not eat nutella with a spoon) in front of them all the time and not have the steam escape of doing what you want to when you want to b'c little eyes watching you.I don't think that necessarily makes my friends with kids grown ups and me without not. But I think that if someone was always watching what you say and do you might feel like demonstrating grown up things even at home. Even if it was only performance.
Well... I feel like I'm pretty together and I'm mostly satisfied with my life but maybe that's because at some point I decided that I'm as together as I'm ever going to be and as grown-up as I'm ever going to be. I do still wish that more people would notice me. Apparently I'm just not interesting to most people. It crosses my mind occasionally that it's more than that - that there's something wrong with me that is off-putting to other people but if so I don't know what it is and I don't know that it would be worth changing who I am in order to please other people.
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