No Regrets

I am a perfectionist by nature.  Not one of those everything-is-perfect, no-hair-out-of-place, don't-sneeze-in-my-house kind of perfectionist.  (My goodness, with all the dust you probably will have to sneeze in my house!)  No, I am the kind of perfectionist that is the poster child for the saying, "If you can't do it right, 
don't do it at all".
And because we can't, we don't.  

Anyway, I think we all have a bit of this perfectionist side in us.  But when you get right down to the heart of perfectionism, it's pride.  Pride tells us that we have to be the best, the cleanest, the fastest, the busiest.  But like all pride, perfectionism comes with a fall- and it is one of the biggest and scariest falls of all.  Compared to the pride of having the best body or the best house, the pride of perfectionism is subtle.

When I am focusing on perfectionism, I am by definition focusing on the little things.  

Sheets without wrinkles.  

Alphabetized bookshelves.  

Stacking the blocks in the box instead of throwing them in.  

Writing blog posts more then once a month.  Okay, maybe not that one.  ;)  

But do I look back on my home three years ago, and think with happy thoughts of my neatly folded sheets?  Do I have memories of great meals eaten with polished silverware?  No, I can't even recall those things.  Unfortunately, too many of my memories are of little voices asking me to play.... and me saying 

"Not now. "Mommy's busy".  

One of the greatest gifts my husband has given me is the desire to live with no regrets.  In fact, he saw the title to this blog post (before I had wrote anything else) and he commented that it was a good one.  :)  He has told me many times that he is living his life with no regrets.  True, there are some.  There are always some.  But in recent years he has constantly had the "big picture" in front of his mind.  And that has changed my life.  I am certainly not as good as it as he is, my perfectionist nature still raises it's head too much, but I am growing, little by little, into that person.

My beautiful friend has this wonderful quote written under her Facebook picture:

Striving to become an old woman 

with few regrets.

With the beginning of this new year, many people are writing resolutions.  I do not have any 'resolutions' for this year.  I have a goal for my life, and I try everyday to keep the big picture in front of my eyes.  I am striving to become an old woman with few regrets.

God Bless!