Am I, at 38 enough?

Like many teenagers, growing up I felt like I wasn’t enough. I was very studious and excelled at sports, but was also quite chubby up until the middle of my fourth year which meant I was a bit of a target sometimes.  When I was outed, as I have mentioned in other blogs it made my life at school pretty interesting.

It’s so easy to say what words can’t hurt and that it says more about them than it did me, but, what it did mean for a long time was that I felt a lack of acceptance from the rest of the kids in my year group. This hurt and believe me, I don’t for a second think I’m alone with this.

No matter who you are there's times growing up when you want nothing more than to be accepted.  Here’s the thing: This need for acceptance, is a natural human tendency.

As we grow up, even though we feel incredibly awkward with spots and maybe a brace we try to fit into the world as best we can.  The yearning to be grounded in who we are, often, unfortunately, we fall into the trap of defining ourselves by what others say about us. As a result, over time, we become conditioned to believe that the world outside us is somehow responsible for our happiness and well-being. We look at our jobs, our partners, what we believe other people think of and we decide that we are lacking.

This was certainly true for me for a good number of years until in the fifth year, but unacceptable means,  I lost weight, didn't give a shit who knew I was gay and what they thought anymore and started to feel stronger and happier about myself. Finally those feelings of not being enough were gone. Or so I thought.  What I realize now is that they too had grown up, what I knew was once naïve insecurity had twisted and mutated into me, as an adult needing perfection and control.   I’ve come to terms with this and it’s opened up a whole range of emotions and new insights for me.

I learnt pretty quickly that I spent so long hiding and pretending for many years that I am so ready at this point, late in life to move past it.

I know, I will never be overly polished, size zero and have beautiful hair with bright white teeth but to be honest this has never really appealed to me.

Things changed for me seven years ago as you all know and it’s only now that I’m really seeing it fully. Somewhere along my path,  I had reverted back to acting from fear rather than love. I had stopped enjoying my imperfections and had begun striving for an outward ideal of perfection.  What I thought was me having it all figured out was actually just me, just Ode, getting a whole lot better at tricking myself.

Prior to late in my Captains year in 2010, I played off +2, had lots of interests and passions.  I was motivated and focused but often very quickly, there always came a point when I stopped enjoying what I was doing. The lightness and joy of creativity got overtaken by struggle and perfectionism.  I looked for acceptance everywhere and my second guessing got out of control.

This is all something I’ve only recently realized. The pattern seems to go that whenever I’m operating from fear I revert to hiding behind a shield of faux perfection. I feel I’m not enough, so I act out, trying to go the other way, to counter the feelings; to try and kid myself, as much as the world, that I’m flawless.  I know, if you are honest that alot of us struggle with this, we all often feel that we have to be more than who we actually are.  We all want to fit in, we all then mould ourselves into what we think others want us to be like.

I had acceptance from my wife, my family and the friends that I needed so trying to seek this exterior acceptance from outside of myself was in hindsight a path to nowhere good.

I believe now that this is one of the main issues that can hold us all back if we aren’t aware of it. Comparing ourselves to other people makes us fearful of being who we really are. But when we aren’t us, who are we? Who are we looking for? Who are we looking for when we try and be anything other than who we really are?  But what if we knew that who we are is already perfect? What if we were all able to step back and see that striving for acceptance is only taking us further away from ourselves?

I know I’m pretty intelligent, I know with work, I can be caring, a good listener, and I actually have a really great imagination. I’m fantastic at lighting fires under others, helping them see how special they are and how things that might seem impossible are actually really achievable.

But… I’m also very self-conscious, introverted, sarcastic and sometimes moody. I can procrastinate for days, I can be argumentative with myself!  I read a lot of pretty deep books but I watch quite a lot of lowbrow TV too, and I really enjoy it. But that’s okay. I don’t have to be a constructed ideal of ‘perfect.’ 

Once I saw myself from an infinite perspective, I didn't need to win people’s acceptance, I became kinder and gentler towards myself. 

There is only ever going to be one me. Ever. There is only one me that has ever existed in this entire universe. Right now I am absolutely perfect at being me. No one can think like me,  create like me, love like me.

When I seek acceptance, when I try for perfection, when I aim for this validation externally, all I am actually doing is playing it safe. I am fitting into someone else’s ideal, I am fitting into a societal average of what perfection is, watered down, anodyne, overly safe.

My experience of life is created inside of me,  Yet because of the way my mind works, I often make ‘things’ up from my thoughts. Suddenly something someone said to me becomes a real ‘thing’ that I feel I have to deal with and obsess over, But it was only ever a thing because I made it a thing. And just like that, I can let it go too.

Just because I’ve had this insight doesn’t mean I’m any more sorted than anyone else,  I’ll still get caught up in the outside-in misunderstanding on a regular basis. Just like we all do. I’ll still get envious and impatient and blame external things for my ‘lack.’ I’ll still sometimes seek acceptance from others.  

It’s all part of the game, all part of life's dance.  I try not regret anything, maybe it’s because I feel I am allowing ‘me’ to show and I’m becoming more connected to who I really am, imperfections and all.

So like me, you need to stop trying for perfection and relax in the knowledge that when you stop, like I am working at, you’ll quickly connect back to who you really are. Someone who is already perfect at being you. And that will never change.