If you are like me, sometimes you set really high expectations for yourself. I mean really high expectations. Like on a scale of 1-10 you have about .4 of wiggle room. The great thing about high expectations, is that when you meet your expectations, you feel pretty super. After all they were pretty high. The downside, is that when you don't quite reach those goals, you sorta feel crummy (to put it politely).
Now you have to understand, I was the kid that would wake up before my mom on a Saturday morning with a picture in my head. I would spend all morning trying to get the thing from my head to the paper. My mom laughs about the fact that by the time she would wake up I would always have a pile of crumpled up papers around me. The pictures in my head would never transfer exactly the way I imagined, but I usually did a pretty great job trying. Each attempt would have at least one part right, but I just couldn't rest until the picture as a whole was perfect. The problem was: it never would be. I would spend all morning working, but have nothing to show.
While the pile of crumpled up papers around me used to be cute, I've grown up, and now it's a problem. I'm starting to realize (because of a lot of great people) that I still do this to myself. Countless times in life I "crumple up" my failed attempts, not willing to look for individual successes, but instead, focusing too much on the whole. I let my expectations be my only guide on what's success and what's failure.
You always hear people talk about that one moment that really changed their thinking. Well today I had one of those moments. This morning something as simple as making pancakes made me realize that often our tiny "failures" don't really take away from the big picture.
If you've ever seen me cook you know that it's sorta of organized chaos. Okay who am I kidding, it's pure chaos and since I was pressed for time, I searched up a recipe. I followed the recipe... sort of. I used whole wheat flour (instead of white), almond milk (instead of homemade buttermilk), cinnamon (instead of "pumpkin pie spice"). I eyeballed the sugar and I may have omitted baking soda. My assistant may or may have not poured AN ENTIRE BAG of chocolate chips into the pancakes. To say that the pancakes looked like the picture would be a lie. But guess what? We devoured them. All day I was hoping that there were some left. I may not have made the blogger's "Fluffy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes," but they were our perfect creations. My pancakes may not have turned out how I envisioned, but they sure made me happy. Stick with me on how this applies to life.
Today as I finished teaching kids at camp, I breathed a sigh of relief. The train wreck was over. I stuttered, stopped, rambled and fumbled through my lesson, sang off key and tripped more than once. The image in my mind of how today would go was nothing like reality. I was immediately gripped by a wave a shame. I had failed. My expectations were high, and I fell short of them.
But just as I wanted to hang my head in shame, a little girl stood up, grabbed my arm, squeezed it tight and said, "You are my favorite counselor." A smile not only covered my face, but it traveled down to my core. Despite my obvious imperfections, when she looked at me, she saw something special. She saw my passion, my enthusiasm, my joy and my hope. She didn't have a list of what I needed to do in order to be a success, she had an idea on how she needed to feel. Her huge smile was a clear indication of her enjoyment.
In life there will be times when we fail by the standards of most. I "lost" a lot during high school sports. In my mind: Effort was appreciated, but it wasn't rewarded, victory was. I honestly wish I would have realized sooner that it wasn't the standings, or the outcome of the game that people would remember, but my attitude. They would remember the passion I poured into my attempt. They would remember the way I loved on my teammates, the way I cared for my enemy, the way I respected the officials. They would remember ME not what I did.
In life, it is so easy to get so caught up in the big picture, that you start to look past the details. I want you to see little success in what would otherwise be called a big failure. I want you to remember that even when it seems that every chance of success is gone, if you pour your heart into what you do, you can never truly fail.
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