Thanks to my lovely wife who encourages me to start writing my thoughts. The objective of this writing is to reduce my perfectionist level to a somewhat healthy where we can channel the desire for perfection into something that is more realistic and something that can be done.
This is because this writing can only exist when I let go some of my perfectionist tendency.
I want to get everything perfect in one shot. That has hindered me from starting things. And worse, it has stopped me from finishing the things that I have started.
As a perfectionist, I experience what I call as blank moments. Moments where I just stare into the computer or whatever in front of me because I don’t think that it is good enough. Or what are the things that can be added. That tendency comes quite frequent. It is like a mind that says why not we stop and then plan for the better things. There is nothing wrong with planning. In fact, I need a plan. But a plan itself is hard to complete if we cannot let go with the perfection.
So these blank moments also often happen when I do the planning. For example, what do I want to do today. There are many things that can be done today. We need something to be prioritized. Without this, it is hard to finish the listing. For example, I may ask where do I want to go in Europe. This will need some alternatives to be put. But it is not realistic to list down every single country or all the cities in the Europe before we start making selection. We need to define the scope of the selection first.
That, in my mind, it is quite challenging. How do we determine the scope? On what basis do I decide whether it is Western Europe, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, or a mixed of them of which pair can be many depending on how we want to do including doing some permutations.
Like this writing, at the end, I accept that it is okay not to be perfect, or sometimes the other word for that, can be comprehensive. It is fine not to be comprehensive in our search. It is fine not to be sharp in our writing. It is even fine to be blank. This is because as the blank moments become longer, I start to get nervous and judgmental. The more blank moments mean less comprehensive in the things I want to do. That is scary and so I become nervous or angry to myself.
In this first day of the new year, I tend to be nervous as well. This is because it is supposed to be special day. So there are several questions that arise in my mind. How one should celebrate the special day? Whom should we say the happy new year message? How do we say the happy new year message?
Often, I do not have the answer. That makes it tougher. When things look like a normal day, I begin to ask, shouldn’t this be special day? But if we go out, isn’t it similar to the weekends where we go out to eat? Ok, maybe one thing to differentiate is that we want to say happy new year. So the next question is, whom do we say? Is it just the people whom we meet today? With the rise of communication technology that is across the continents at a virtually zero cost, there are many people that we can send message. Wait a moment, do we call or do we send message? How do we determine the boundary of those we call and those we send message. For those whom we send message, should it be personalised or just a general message. Do we attach picture or just a description in terms of text? Do we put the name or we just say generally?
I know these questions are not necessarily to be asked for there is no right or wrong answer. One needs to decide and act upon personal preference and since this is not for grading, it does not have to be consistent.
A new year also tends to come with many expectations. As it is a new year, I tend to have the hope that I can do A, B, C, D, E, and so on, things that I did not manage to do last year. It is understandable since one needs to progress. At the same time, it can create a heavy expectation that can crush our spirit when only a little of it is in progress later on.
So how do we fill up the time in the new year?
I need to remember that things are not as bleak as I thought. As Pdt. Theo said last night, each of us is given a blank new book of 2016 regardless of what we filled in the previous year. Sure there are some consequences from last year’s acts that will flow into this year. But what he meant is that we are given new chances on how to react, whether we want to react with sadness and desperation or are we going to respond these with faith and courage to face them with the knowledge that God will take care of us.
So, when I am faced with a mind that is heavy, the one that seems to be bleak, the one where I can’t think with clarity.
As the service yesterday reminded, there is actually nothing to fear of since God has come to save ourselves. It is us who often have the ambition of certain things that we are afraid when it does not happen.
We need to ask so what? For example, so what if I choose the wrong movie to watch or the wrong clothes to wear, or the wrong food to try.
There are 3 minutes left for the 30-minutes write up for today. I feel sleepy. That is the challenge I have. So, I need to remember that if I am sleepy and it is fine too. Either I sleep, or if I still need to do things, then find the solution. Drink coffee, stand, walk around are some of the examples of trying to overcome the sleepiness instead of becoming bitter and only asking why I’m sleepy without doing anything to act upon it.
Also, learn to love what I am doing. It may go far.
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