I'm Sorry I Can't Be Perfect

I work at my church on Wednesday nights. There is a 9 year old little girl that struggles with perfection. I know this girls family pretty well. She has awesome parents and two older sisters. She has no reason what so ever to feel pressure to be perfect. Yet, there are things that people do and say that puts her under that pressure. At 9 years old.

I know how she feels. I also feel the need to be, not necessarily perfect, but better than I am. There are expectations I have for myself that I feel others have put on me. I know that the expectations are not "real". I mean "real" in that the people I feel the pressure from do not have these expectations of me. They have not said it or demanded it. They are invisible. Yet, the "unreal" power of the unsaid expectations is enormous. When kids are under such pressure to perform well, it causes stress and insecurity. At a young age, I felt pressured to do well in school, to preform well in sports and to be skinny. The first 2 aren't bad things. All parents want their kids to excel. It was the last one that really got me bad. By the age of 12, I was having stomach issues and my doctor diagnosed it as an ulcer. At 12.

I also have two siblings. My brother is awesome! In high school, he played football, wrestling and lacrosse. He also was part of civil air patrol and national honor society. He also had a pretty high GPA. My brother is also really funny and very social. Because he was older, I looked up to him and strived to do as well as he did. My sister is also awesome! She did better even than my brother in high school. Though she wasn't involved with sports, my sister was very active in NHS, volunteering and keeping track of funds as treasurer. My sister is also very animated and gets along with everyone. Plus she is also very pretty and smaller than me. Even though she is younger than me, I still feel the pressured to look like her. Of course this pressure has died down in recent years, but I still feel it sometimes. Since then my brother has gone to university, been on the deans list, played rugby for school, graduated with a degree in geology and is now working for one of the biggest oil companies in the world. My sister has also gone to college and is getting her degree in chemistry. Both my siblings have gone into the sciences, getting their BSs.

I guess all this talking about my siblings and thinking about how stress of others successes around me has made me realize I am just jealous. I am jealous that I am not skinnier and prettier. I am jealous that I was not top of my class in hs or on the deans list in college. I am jealous that others around me have more motivation and better skills than I do. I am upset with myself because try as I might, I CAN'T BE PERFECT!!! Even looking at the facts, I don't want to be perfect. I don't want that kind of pressure. I just want to be me and not have to worry about what other people think of me. However, that can never happen. I will always have the pressure to look a certain way, to have a successful life and to do great things. What I want to be right now is a kid. I want to go back and have fun and play and not have all the responsibilities. Yet, even as a kid, there is the pressure to be perfect, like my little friend. Especially as a kid, there are the pressures of life, because what you do as a kid has enormous influence of what you do as an adult.  I just wish I could be all the things everyone wants me to be to make them happy. But, even if they are happy, does that make me happy? Maybe? But why should I worry what others want for my life? I should focus on what I want and what makes me happy. It will make me the person I want to be and the only one responsible for my life is me. For my happiness and sadness, successes and failures, rights and wrongs and everything else in between. 

Thankfully God is my Savior and I don't have to be perfect because He is. He will take care of me and He loves me just the way I am. His grace covers my life and I am so thankful.

Forever Yours
Princess Kalio