When my little people were maybe 3 and 5, like in this adorable #TBT photo (you’re welcome for the gratuitous shot), they fired my own words back at me for the first time.  We were eating at some fast food place, undoubtedly with the type of playscape to which I credit my children’s outstanding immune systems, and I opened a ketchup for each.

(By the way, I know some of y’all are judging me for the 3 year old with fries.  Don’t try to hide behind your screen.)

“What about your ketchup, Mommy?”

For maybe the 100th time, I replied, “I don’t like ketchup.”

A small face screwed up in thought, and then brightened and tossed back, “But you always tell us we need to try something new, even if we’ve tried it before, because we might like it!”

Yep.  I DID always say that, didn’t I?  But ketchup?  The point of that motherhood wisdom is to teach them to like things that have some redeeming value.  Not ketchup.  However, I decided to take one for the Mom Team and answered, “Well, you got me.  I do always say that, so I will try some of yours.”

So began my love affair with ketchup.

That incident taught me that, as a mom, I was right – we should always try something new.  That became a bit of a mantra for me from that day forward, and I’ve made a point to deliberately try something new (or try again) ever since, at least every year.  I was 33 then.  Sometimes it worked – guacamole (thank you, Jillynn Shaver, Becky Fenlaw and Julio’s on Duval!), raw tomatoes (yea, Shelley Beauchamp, a Groupon and whatever that nice restaurant was in Virginia with the excellent caprese salad!), or coconut (that one took a few years of putting on Dolores McNab’s pile-on faithfully every Chapel Choir Tour announcement party, but it worked!).  Sometimes it didn’t – I gave poi two shots and that’s a big NO, as are mushrooms, although I’ll revisit that one later.

I hadn’t decided on my “new thing” for this year. It’s a big one – 40 – so I was kind of hoping for something a bit more extraordinary than a run-of-the-mill veggie.  And boy, did I just figure it out.

I’m trying something new – failure.

Since I was born, I’ve been a perfectionist. I wish I could go to therapy and blame my parents for their ridiculous expectations. Given that the one time I failed something in school, my dad bought me a five pound bag of M&Ms and told me not to sweat it, I think that option is off the table. No, I’m wired how I’m wired.  Internally I believe wholeheartedly in doing things excellently.

I’m also wired to be lazy.  I’d rather sit and read a book and eat some chips than do pretty much anything I’m “supposed” to do.  I’ve spent my life dealing with the internal war these two things create.  Typically, the “good side” – productivity and excellence – wins.

When you spend your life this way, an inevitable side effect is that you do things fairly well, the majority of the time, leading to the expectation by the world around you that you will continue to do so.  However, because I am human and sometimes the “book and chips” side wins – or, because I’m human and sometimes I just mess up! – I fall short of people’s expectations of me from time to time.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that this has led to an increasingly dramatic reaction from people.  It’s like there’s an inverted relationship between performance and grace for high achievers – the higher and better you perform on a consistent basis, the lower the level of grace given when performance falls short.

I should note that I’m not talking spiritually here, lest my Jesus friends panic.  The only place I’ve come to terms with failure and grace is in my relationship with God.  No worries there. I’m talking 100% here and now.

Now, there are many people who are high achievers who don’t give a rip what anyone else thinks, so the level of grace afforded them by others is completely inconsequential.  I’m so amazed and impressed by those people – I am not one of them.  A big part of my perfectionism is wanting to do things well, not just because I feel they SHOULD be done well, but because I want to make life better for people in any given situation.  People who don’t care about what people think accept their own failures with more of a shrug and a “next time” attitude, not stopping to worry about how it affected others because they know they will essentially make up for it and succeed the next time.  Because they refuse to base things on the opinions and thoughts of others, and consequently the grace (or lack thereof) afforded them by others, the “others” in question eventually back off.  These people succeed because they aren’t afraid of, or intimidated, by failure.  For many of them, they don’t even consider failure to be failure!  So they keep moving forward without letting failure, or perceived failure, stop them.

I want that. I want to be that kind of person.  It’s not exactly how I’m wired, but as I mentioned, I’m certainly wired to be lazy and read and eat chips all day, and I’ve conquered that over and over for 40 years.  Why can’t I decide to move past my perfectionism in the eyes of the outside world and embrace the possibility – the inevitability – of failure?

That’s going to be my new thing.  I’m going to achieve or fail, but I’m not going to do either with an eye toward the reactions of others.   Anyone want to join me?

PS I’m still going to continue down my road of trying to find a new food to like this year, so if you have any suggestions for 40, please bring ’em on!

I’ve mentioned that I am mildly – or possible wildly – uncomfortable with the idea of blogging in the first place, primarily because I feel odd about holding forth for x-hundred words with the expectation that anyone will want to read it.  Thus my inconsistency in writing.  Then time passes, people need things, the road to mission trips and vacation beckons…

Truthfully, I’ve sat down at the keyboard multiple times and stared at a blank screen.  Type, reread, delete, repeat.  There’s too much to write about, and too little.  The WORLD is big and overwhelming and full of crazy people, a notion reinforced every time I look at a screen that is connected to it.  The need to educate myself about the many, many BIG issues going on inevitably brings a malaise that steers toward a cup of coffee, a cookie and a good novel.  I don’t want or plan to bury my head in the sand.  It’s just that the very effort of learning even the names of all the different “sides” to everything going on makes me tired.  The sheer mass of information available, and the persuasiveness of all of it, adds another layer to the heavy responsibility of sifting and winnowing truth from fiction.  Right from wrong.  To whom I should throw my support on any given issue, on any given day.  What friends I might lose depending on what I say today, or tomorrow.

What ultimately sets me to rights is the secure knowledge that I wasn’t designed to effect change on a global scale.  A lot of people are, and I’m amazed and full of admiration for their skills and abilities.  No, I’m a 5-table coffeeshop kind of band – no arena tours for this girl.   My job is more of a behind-the-scenes, right-place-at-the-right-time kind of thing.  “Divine appointments” is the “church term” and what I believe them to be.  The funny thing about writing this blog, which started as a result of the many interesting conversations I find myself in, is that those key appointments are where my ministry and influence lie.  And because those small, specific moments are often pretty BIG conversations to the participants (myself included), I find it impossible or disrespectful to share them with outside readers!

So, as the weeks progress and more world events unfold, I am determined to overcome my malaise and really dive into what’s going on and what it all means.  I want to be prepared for those small, divine conversations that might affect what others – and I, myself – think, and do, about it. I truly welcome your input – I’ve been very surprised by the varying (and who-would-have-thought) opinions of many of my friends online regarding current events.  I’m a big believer in benefiting from the knowledge of people I can trust.  And after a post like this, be on the lookout for an upcoming, obnoxious “how cute are my adorable kids???” edition, complete with pseudo-artistic photos…..