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Great Expectations

Have you ever been disappointed with yourself? Have you ever attributed to yourself certain admirable traits and then tried to live up to them? I know that's backwards, but that hasn't stopped me in the past.

I find it easy to expect from myself what I admire in others. Instead of simply esteeming a particular quality I see in someone else, I (sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously) try to emulate it. It's good to reach for something higher, a standard just beyond where you are now. It causes growth and learning. Right?

Right. The problem comes in when my desire to better myself isn't actually bettering myself, it's changing myself, and it leads me to have great expectations - too great. Unrealistic. When what I admire in someone else, what I want to emulate in my own life, is completely foreign to my personality, when I reach for something that's not just a little beyond where I am right now, it's completely off my grid, that's when I have a problem.

Lately, I've berated myself, for being a numbers and words person. Why can't I be more of a people-person? Being part of a church and working in a church office (especially working in the church office), the message pounds in my ears every day; it surrounds me: people. people. people. It's people that matter. And I agree.

Yet here I sit, a words and numbers person.

I love the people in my life: my family and my friends - a lot. I hope I love them well - especially my family. I know women whose lives are open appointment calendars. Their time is always available to someone in need. Anyone in need, not just their family and friends. To be that open with my time and emotional energy is totally off my grid.

I hate my limitations. I want to be everything I expect of me and everything I think others expect of me, but this doesn't seem to be possible. As my very wise husband reminded me yesterday (as I tearfully lamented this deep chasm of my shortfalls): I'm not the whole body of Christ. I'm only one part. I'm not supposed to have it all. I'm not supposed to be able to do it all. I've been through this before. I really thought that I'd had this one down. I was wrong.

Will I ever learn? Oh how I hope so.

Comments

  1. VickiSeptember 22, 2010 at 11:45 AM

    I would just like to say, that as much as a number/word person(s) would like to be more people-like, those people-CONSUMED person(s) wish to be more words/number like.

    ...did that make sense? 'Cause I am not a good words person ;)

    May I add, that you are a great people-person in my book!

    ReplyDelete
  2. teriNovember 6, 2010 at 12:45 AM

    Wow....this one really grabbed my heart. thanks Lori for your words that touch my heart.<3

    ReplyDelete

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