SISTER WISDOM

This post is part of the 30-Minute Blogging Challenge at Steady Mom.

I just started a pot of coffee brewing, and since my coffee maker needs to be cleaned out yet again (darn hard water) and takes about 30 minutes to brew a pot, that’s my automatic timer. I’m taking this 30-minute posting challenge because I have that feeling, the one of a pesky little guilt peering over my shoulder, whispering in my ear, “You’re on the computer agaaaain?” It’s hard to hear the whisper sometimes because of the kids hollering in the background…

The kids. I love these kids. I have three of them, right now they’re 3, 2, and almost 1. They take a lot of time. They’re always needing help with stuff, and I’m thinking, Seriously, shouldn’t you little people be taking care of yourselves by now?

Did I mention that pesky little guilt feeling?

I got snappy with my husband last night because (presumably) he wasn’t doing something right. But today I thought about it again, and I realized what it really was.
I’ve been pressuring myself to get everything done, and by everything I mean:

1. get the house cleaned out, decluttered, organized, and on a regular cleaning routine that keeps the floors from looking like they’re made of dirt.
2. train the kids! be consistent! teach them amazing skills! do preschool at home! pay attention! read together! answer their questions! be a super Mom! never let a disobedience go unnoticed!
3. be a successful freelance writer, and post regularly at all my blogs and sites and get some great writing jobs for actual print publications and write fiction every day and write poetry every day and don’t waste time on unimportant details and be disciplined and on top of things and scheduled and follow that editorial calendar I spent two hours making!
4. spend quality time with Joe and be a super great wife and don’t argue and don’t nag and don’t whine and have fun together and go on regular date nights and get some new lingerie and be strong and romantic and amazing and etc. all the time!!!!
5. eat healthy and walk on the treadmill everyday so I can finally lose the last of this baby weight and keep my nails manicured and good grief, wear lipstick so I don’t look like a frumpy mom all the time and take the kids outside more and go outside more and get some family photos taken and organize all the photos from last year and . . .

There are more, but that’s the main stuff.
And the problem is the pressure I’m putting on myself to accomplish all of my goals right now.
Yesterday would be even better. See, the thing is, these are goals I’ve had and have been working on for some time, and I feel like I should have made a lot more progress than I have, and I feel like if I really stuck to it and were more diligent, then I’d probably have accomplished everything and have a perfect life and be a perfect wife. Ta da!

But the problem is (well, another problem besides the self-pressuring problem) is that a lot of these goals are ongoing. In fact, they’re the very opposite of what is supposed to make for a good goal: measurable, specific, something you can put a deadline on. How do you put a deadline on “be a great wife” and how do you measure “train the kids” and how do you get specific on a goal as big as “be a successful writer”?

The issue is, I think, that these really aren’t goals so much as they are keys to the life I want to live. The life I want to live and the person I want to be every single stinkin’ day. (Forgive me, I’m feeling a bit cynical right now.) I want to live a life that is better than the average, mediocre life I often subject myself and my family to. I want to rise above it, so to speak. No status quo for me.
And I have these lofty aspirations, which are good and help me to strive for something better. But sometimes those lofty aspirations just beat me on the head. Sometimes, I wish I didn’t have so many goals. Sometimes, I wish I could just get myself to settle for “okay” and leave off all this striving for the best.

Grumble grumble grumble. (Didn’t I just write an article about whining women? Oh how these things come back and bite me in the butt…)

Anyone else know what I’m talking about here?

I started writing this blog a couple of years ago as a means to chronicle my own journey toward a better life and to encourage other women to go for more than what our culture tells us is acceptable.
I’ve never liked being told to settle. I’ve never liked the stereotypes I’m expected to fall into, like the one about the wife who nags and controls her husband, or the one about the frazzled mom, or the one about the writer who never really makes it…
I do not want to be any of those stereotypes.
But, here I am, and on more occasions than I want to admit, that’s exactly what I’ve been.

Right now my head feels so full of the goals, the wishes, the visions for this better life but my heart feels full of bad habits, bad attitudes, character flaws, procrastination, self-pity, laziness. And right now there’s a little bit of hopelessness, because when you try and try and try but still find yourself failing, it starts to get to you.
Doesn’t it? Or is that just me?

Solomon said that hope deferred makes the heart sick. It’s true. Right now I feel a little heartsick.
But, here I am, and even though I’ve been the status quo, there are also times when I’ve been better.

Like when I choose not to get angry at my husband for being late home from work. I’ve done that at least once!
Like when I choose to be consistent in training my kids and teach them about what Jesus says. I’ve done that at least once!
Like when I choose to set a schedule and set some goals for my writing and stick to it, but then stop when it’s time to go to something else. I’ve done that at least once!

I like my life when I choose the best. What I don’t like is when I walk in the ruts of the stereotypical me, when I stick to my bad habits, and I see that gulf between what I’m being and what I want to be. I think there will always be a gulf, but I can handle that when I know I’m at least getting closer.
It eats me alive when I know I’m actually drifting further and further away.

This whole post is really me thinking out loud, kind of pouring my heart onto the page (again, exactly the kind of verbiage I’ve written an article about before and now here I am eating my words…). It’s helped, though, because I’ve realized a couple of things as I let my fingers translate the fuzzy brain and overwhelmed heart:

• I’m still not willing to settle. My goals may be extreme, my aspirations may be lofty, but who I am on the inside will not let me settle for mediocrity.
• Goals are reachable by setting steps and taking those steps one at a time. Some of what I want to do and be is a matter of breaking down the big goals into doable daily steps.
• A lifestyle isn’t the same thing as a goal. Some of what I want to do and be is a matter of changing habits and training myself into new behavior that supports my intentional choice to be the best I can be and build the best life I can build. I don’t want to be like that foolish woman who is always tearing her house down with her hands. The wise woman builds her house, and I need to look at the habits I must change in order to build my house, my life, to be more than average, more than okay.
• To plan is human; to act is divine… One step at a time, but the key lies in me taking those steps instead of defaulting back to… well, whatever isn’t the next step.
• Coffee’s done and it’s time for me to quit writing.

Did you know that hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but when the desire comes it is a tree of life?

A tree of life.




Images courtesy of Matt Callow and h. koppdelaney.