Thursday, February 14, 2013

My Epiphanies (one of them, anyway)

Actually, I had three yesterday.
Isn't that some sort of record?
I think it might be for me.
I usually take a l-o-n-g time to "get" somthing.
Then a l-o-n-g time to "process" it.
Which makes me look a bit slow or something.
BUT,
once I've got it, I've got it good.
(Yes, I know "I have it well" would be better grammar, but it just doesn't say it the way I want to.)

My big "AHA!" moments came closely together, and are on the same subject, but I'm excited about them both and I see them both separately because, like I said, I usually take my time about these things.

I was reading this article, and it was encouraging for me, but not as much as it was intended to be; not as much as I knew it could be.
I read things often about how being a perfectionist is crippling, how you don't do anything because you can't do it perfectly, how seeking perfection is demoralizing, and how we should just strive for excellence instead.
Which all sounds great, except I can't (couldn't!) figure out the difference between perfection and excellence, so what it really sounded like was "be lazy, cop out, slide into doing things poorly..."
Last night I was frustrated, because I knew I was missing something by not being able to separate "perfect" and "excellent", and my awesome husband helped me (finally) figure it out.
Even thought he wasn't in the mood, he tried first one way, then another to explain the difference to me, but still all I could hear was "right way vs lazy way". Eventually I decided to put him out of his misery (it's GOT to be frustrating to try to explain a new concept to me!), and sweetly said "Well, I know one thing that's perfect. Our marriage." To which he wisely responded "No, it's not."
He went on to ask me if there is any room for improvement or growth, or if I want our marriage to be exactly what it is 10 or 20 years from now. Well. As happy as we are, one thing I have learned in our first 10 years of marriage is that there is always room for growth, and even though I can't imagine how anything could get any better, I couldn't imaging things any better than our honeymoon 10 years ago either, and it IS better now!
He explained, that means it's not perfect.
Then he asked if I'm completely happy and satisfied with the way it is right now.
Um, YES!!
He explained, that's "excellent".

I GET IT!!!

!!!

(Yep. He's awesome. Best Husband On The Planet. I mean, c'mon- he can explain things to an aspie!!


Y'all.
This is huge.

I've never understood the difference before! All kinds of things are falling into place and making sense now!!

***Happy Dance ***

In the next few days, I'll share 
Epiphany #2: You can have it all, just not all at one time.
and
Epiphany #3: They're not all doing what I'm doing.

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