on knowledge.

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Lately, I've really been struggling with this whole "I know better" guilt. 

I know that I should eat healthier. I know that I should work-out more. I know that I should keep the house clean. I know that I can be a better wife. I know that I can wake up earlier. I know that I can work harder at my job. I know, I know, I know.

So I have all this guilt for the things I'm not doing. I don't do them because I have this constant fear of not being good enough. And then I drown those feelings with more laziness and food. And that my friends, is the vicious cycle I am in.

I have this ache to paint and write and run and sing and bake and LIVE.

I just don't because I have convinced myself that I'm not good enough to find happiness in those things.

As if I have to be perfect at a task to enjoy it.

I feel this suffocating demand to be without flaw, and I know I'll never live up to that so I fall back on the knowledge that I will fail at perfection.

So why try.

But even here, I know better. I know that it is not perfection that is asked of me or of you or of anyone.

Improvement is all that is expected.

I have this text-message urgency to have everything now and reach the future now and be prepared now and have all my problems solved now.

The future isn't now. I know that too.

Knowledge isn't always what it seems. The truth is, knowledge can be crippling.

Truth seems like freedom when you don't have it.

But when you do, it comes with expectations. I just wanted to go on a cruise, but I have an expectation to run the ship.

Life isn't a vacation. I keep trying to take a vacation FROM MY LIFE, but you can't. Life follows you wherever you go. Responsibility, expectations, and structure call to you each and every Monday.

It is not a hard life, but sometimes living it is hard.

I know that I should do better, but I don't know if I can be better. I hope I can. I want to be. But that is something I just don't know.

I see my feet slip-up and my steps get shaky, and instead of working to regain my balance, I jump off the cliff. As if I meant to do it in the first place.

No one can judge me if they think I chose this. No one can make me feel bad if I make myself feel worse first.

But, then there was a break-through.

Bonnie L Oscarson spoke to me this week. (To thousands of other women too, but really to me.) I have emotionally craved this lesson for months. Her solution to all of my stresses and worries and fears came in eight words.

"Aim for the ideal but plan for contingencies."

This is my new mantra. All week I have repeated this over and over and over in my head. I can learn to accept contingencies. I can move beyond the ideal of perfection and find happiness even when things don't go according to plan.

I can get through these struggles. I can overcome. I can be better.

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