Blazing through Navy life one duty station at a time.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The pursuit for perfection

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since my last post.  Today, one of my favorite bloggers, The Pioneer Woman, wrote about ten important things she's learned about blogging, and #2 was "blog often".  Hmmm....ooops?


I am a perfectionist.  Plain and simple.  Period.  I hate to do anything that doesn't feel like it at least approaches, if not achieves, my ridiculous standards of perfection.  This is a life long affliction.  It's even a bit of a joke in my family.  As a small (read: 2 and a half year old) child, I wanted to take violin lessons.  Apparently I had seen Count von Count playing his violin on Sesame Street and decided I needed to play the violin too.  I imagine there was quite a bit of pestering involved on my part (sadly, a trait my own child has clearly inherited) and eventually, armed with a quarter sized violin, I started Suzuki lessons.  Several pint sized temper tantrums and breakdowns later, my parents decided it was in everyone's best interest if I stop with the lessons and try to be a normal kid.  Nice try, Mom and Dad, nice try.


Many years later and many attempts at perfection I am still pretty much the same Type A nut as always.  I do find that with age comes a bit of wisdom, and I'm not totally devastated when I can't live up to my expectations (which is pretty much never - just a fact of life I am learning).  I've learned to slow down and take my time, to enjoy the little things and to not worry if it's not exactly perfect.  Well....what I mean to say is that I don't worry as much if it's not exactly perfect.  This probably also has to do with being a parent.  After the third or fourth time you get spit up on you, it's pretty much all over.


One thing I find my perfectionism still inhibits is my ability to write.  One of the reasons it has taken me so long to start blogging is my fear of failure - failing to come up with something interesting to write, failing to be witty, failing to be any good at all.  For the last three weeks I have found myself blocked.  Lots of things have been going on in my life, but nothing that seemed to spark that need (or desire) to write.  But today The Pioneer Woman, in item #8, told me that if I have writer's block I should push through anyway.  So here I am, pushing through.


I'm going to resolve to write something every day, even if it's the worst thing I've ever written and it reads like utter nonsense.  I imagine it's like anything else - I just need to make time in my day until it becomes routine.  So here we go.  Thanks Pioneer Woman, for your inspiring words.  And thank you reader, for being you (see PW's list, item #10).