askyermom

After a week with a group of much younger people, I am feeling a possibly perfect mix of hopefulness and concern. They are so wonderful and intelligent and creative. Despite all that, some of them talk about failing in the way I did at their age and it stings to hear it.

I remember thinking of life as a balance beam [if you’ve never seen or heard of gymnastics, a balance beam is the long piece of wood gymnasts sometimes jump on, do some crazy and precise moves while remaining on the beam and then jump off again]. The balance beam in my imaginary life landscape was very high up, and one false move was doom.

When you envision your path this way, you don’t make big moves, you don’t jump for joy or tumble just to see what will happen. If you really believe one false move is going to destroy you, you just don’t make as many moves at all.

The aversion for failure is pretty natural, especially if your mistakes are very costly. I now see most of the time the cost was not real humiliation, but a dialogue in my own mind that felt a lot like real humiliation.

Anyhoo, being afraid of failure and embarrassment is understandable, but it’s not a personality of choice. Fear will keep your personality small and manageable, but why would you want that?

We worked on jigsaw puzzles last week and while one puzzle had orderly pieces that followed the classic looping grid, another had wild and hectic shapes, pieces with straight sides that did not belong on the edge. At first, I was aggravated by the hectic puzzle, but after a day of walking past it, I found I could not walk by without hunting down some weird little guy and snapping him in place.

Be some weird little guy, some irreplaceable piece!! Really find your edges!! Twist your metaphors for all they’re worth down to the last drop in the bucket!!

I like to approach new things with the attitude of “I wonder what I will wreck?” I have learned that bosses do not like this sort of question, so I keep it to myself when I am on the clock. It’s still there, though. I’m still going to wonder. It’s much more pleasant than worrying. Any time I expect perfection it slows me down and pre-loads a bunch of tension. Bosses also do not want to hear about how you have shrugged off perfectionism, but that’s your business.

There are very few times when perfect results matter, and on top of that, you can have a perfect contribution and then it still gets hecked up by some other factor–a hurricane, a poltergeist, bad hair, cilantro, you name it.

Go ahead and make some false moves. It will be okay.

Love,
yermom

The paperback is rreeeaally close to being ready. We had to recalibrate the back cover, so embarrassing!! If you order one now, you might get to see it before I do. Don’t Eat Your Children is available at most retailers for mail order. Try this one: Bookshop.org. If you subscribe to my newsletter or my substack, you will be in the loop for whatever comes next, like ebooks.

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