Perfectionism

Everyone feels the pressure to live up to others' expectations.  Some of us take it to the next level.  We battle the need to live up to our own impossibly high standards.  For us, "good enough" is never good enough.  

This poem has been a way for me to  answer back those paralyzing feelings and allow myself to celebrate my less-than-perfect performance.  

                  Perfectionism

Always before, some neat tragedy,

Some excuse to pin my failure on.

Some reason not to be made at me:

  Some situation,

  Some attack upon my heart!

Now, nothing.

Nothing's wrong out there,

So why am I so wrong inside --

Tell me, where do I start?

Whoever said that I had to be

"Star Performer"  "Perfect Acrobat" --

Balancing 

     Life 

Automatically:

  Toss the balls,

  Suspend them,

  Catch them in my hat!

They're dropping.

On my spotlit stage

My bright pretensions roll away

As the juggler falls flat.

What do you hear when all the harshest words are spoken,

Then you replay the tape,

and they're said in your own voice?

How do you fix the need to fix what isn't broken?

How do you choose to live,

When you think you have no choice?

God never gave me a guarantee

That I'd always please my audience.

He made the world, then He added me:

   So there must be 

   Some 

   Significance

   I bring...

To something. 

Why deny that I 

Can fly on my imperfect wings?

I can sigh, 

yet still sing.

But I will sing to sing, and not to hear some crowd applaud;

Live, not to prove my worth, but to see my worth applied.

Just as it says: 

"Humble yourself under the hand of God,

And He will lift you up when He knows the time is right."