Personal charter
Oct. 23rd, 2010 01:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
discodoris I haven't always been as content and joyful in my life as I am now. As with everybody else, I've come a long way in this journey called life. And when I was younger, I was confused, turbulent and distressed. I was a perfectionist and that hurt me immensely. I'll try and explain. I was bitterly disappointed with myself virtually all the time. And perversely, the more disappointed I was with myself, the more that I'd actively avoid jobs that I perceived that I couldn't do 100%. So if I couldn't keep my bedroom absolutely 100% sparkling clean all the time, I wouldn't try at all and end up living in complete chaos.
When I was a teen, I was so bitterly disappointed at my inability to do everything perfectly that I dodged doing homework (no point unless I got it absolutely perfect), I stayed away from team sports because I wasn't capable of being the best team mate ever and I made myself completely miserable. I even started researching ways to kill myself because I was such a complete disappointment to everyone. Because, surprise surprise, when I dodged doing things I couldn't do perfectly, I was told about my parents' and teachers' disappointment that I wasn't trying. The only thing that stopped me killing myself back then was, oddly enough, not being able to find a way to remove myself from Earth without someone else having to go to some trouble on my behalf, be that coroners, police, ambulance people or my parents.
As I grew older, that perfectionism still hurt me. Because rather than admitting to my crippling insecurity, I built a shell around me that radiated competence and intelligence and people perceived me as superior, supercilious and arrogant. They couldn't see the real me, weeping with being shunned, being a failure, yearning to be understood. And you know what? That was my real arrogance, thinking that people SHOULD understand what and how I really felt without being prepared to communicate it AT ALL.
It's taken me years to understand that actually, being human is what I am. I make mistakes, I act illogically, I can't do everything 100% right and be utterly fabulous. And what's more, everyone else is like that too - all I can do is forgive myself and others and apologize when I get it utterly arse about face. And that to continue on this world of personal development, that I have to LISTEN to others, to take their criticism on board. The more I learn, the more content, settled and joyous my life has become.
One of the things that really helped me on my life journey was a personal charter, that I had printed out and attached to my computer at work for at least five years. So for five years, five days per week, eight hours each day, I had a reminder in front of me. The charter read:
I have the right to:
Change my mind.
Make mistakes.
Make decisions or statements without justifying them.
Say "I don't know" or "I don't understand".
Feel and express emotions, positive and negative, without feeling I'm weak.
Be illogical.
Say "no" without feeling guilty.
Not get involved with someone else's problems.
Judge myself and my actions and take responsibility for the results.
Be myself.
I also recognize that everyone else has the same rights.
This charter isn't the cure-all for everything by any stretch of the imagination, there was an awful lot of other stuff that I've learned from and put into practice. Nor in fact is it something I'm saying that everyone would find valuable. It's just something that I found helped ME enormously along the way. Because something else that I've learned is that I'm only responsible for myself. I can offer perspectives in the interest of criticism, because as I said, listening to criticism from others is a huge part of learning to take personal responsibility and tailor your reactions and actions to how you want to be perceived, whether it's professionally or socially. No criticism means no opportunity to learn and that's something that I think is unkind. I'd rather be perceived as a bitch, if what I say has some ability to help people learn, than to say sweet things to people's faces and moan about them behind their backs. Which more people do in the interests of being "nice". Actually, that's passive aggressive, not truly community spirited, in my opinion.
But again, that's just my opinion and how I personally structure my morality. Not something that I have to justify to others, or expect them to take on. Because we're only actually responsible to ourselves. In my case, I'm aware that my inner voice is highly critical, but I've learned to be ok with that and just strive towards perfection, because I'm human and I'm never going to achieve perfection and that's all right.
When I was a teen, I was so bitterly disappointed at my inability to do everything perfectly that I dodged doing homework (no point unless I got it absolutely perfect), I stayed away from team sports because I wasn't capable of being the best team mate ever and I made myself completely miserable. I even started researching ways to kill myself because I was such a complete disappointment to everyone. Because, surprise surprise, when I dodged doing things I couldn't do perfectly, I was told about my parents' and teachers' disappointment that I wasn't trying. The only thing that stopped me killing myself back then was, oddly enough, not being able to find a way to remove myself from Earth without someone else having to go to some trouble on my behalf, be that coroners, police, ambulance people or my parents.
As I grew older, that perfectionism still hurt me. Because rather than admitting to my crippling insecurity, I built a shell around me that radiated competence and intelligence and people perceived me as superior, supercilious and arrogant. They couldn't see the real me, weeping with being shunned, being a failure, yearning to be understood. And you know what? That was my real arrogance, thinking that people SHOULD understand what and how I really felt without being prepared to communicate it AT ALL.
It's taken me years to understand that actually, being human is what I am. I make mistakes, I act illogically, I can't do everything 100% right and be utterly fabulous. And what's more, everyone else is like that too - all I can do is forgive myself and others and apologize when I get it utterly arse about face. And that to continue on this world of personal development, that I have to LISTEN to others, to take their criticism on board. The more I learn, the more content, settled and joyous my life has become.
One of the things that really helped me on my life journey was a personal charter, that I had printed out and attached to my computer at work for at least five years. So for five years, five days per week, eight hours each day, I had a reminder in front of me. The charter read:
I have the right to:
Change my mind.
Make mistakes.
Make decisions or statements without justifying them.
Say "I don't know" or "I don't understand".
Feel and express emotions, positive and negative, without feeling I'm weak.
Be illogical.
Say "no" without feeling guilty.
Not get involved with someone else's problems.
Judge myself and my actions and take responsibility for the results.
Be myself.
I also recognize that everyone else has the same rights.
This charter isn't the cure-all for everything by any stretch of the imagination, there was an awful lot of other stuff that I've learned from and put into practice. Nor in fact is it something I'm saying that everyone would find valuable. It's just something that I found helped ME enormously along the way. Because something else that I've learned is that I'm only responsible for myself. I can offer perspectives in the interest of criticism, because as I said, listening to criticism from others is a huge part of learning to take personal responsibility and tailor your reactions and actions to how you want to be perceived, whether it's professionally or socially. No criticism means no opportunity to learn and that's something that I think is unkind. I'd rather be perceived as a bitch, if what I say has some ability to help people learn, than to say sweet things to people's faces and moan about them behind their backs. Which more people do in the interests of being "nice". Actually, that's passive aggressive, not truly community spirited, in my opinion.
But again, that's just my opinion and how I personally structure my morality. Not something that I have to justify to others, or expect them to take on. Because we're only actually responsible to ourselves. In my case, I'm aware that my inner voice is highly critical, but I've learned to be ok with that and just strive towards perfection, because I'm human and I'm never going to achieve perfection and that's all right.
