What I Say Versus What I Do

I might like you to think that my reading material of choice is The Economist and Nature, but really, it’s The National Enquirer.

I’m not alone in this. When we used to subscribe to The Enquirer (that bears repeating: we used to subscribe to The National Enquirer), of all the people we knew, only one did not immediately grab it from our coffee table and tear through it, oblivious to what was going on around them. And she’s the most uptight person I’ve ever met.

I’d like you to think I always read literary fiction and poetry but, in reality, I am a huge sucker for self-help books.

I might allow you to think that salads and steamed vegetables are my foods of choice. No. I might grit my teeth and go with them, but it’s the potato chips that I really want. Candy, too. In fact, a friend just freaked me out when she mentioned she still had some Christmas candy left over. Are you kidding me? Honestly, when people say, “I don’t like sweets,” I assume they are lying.

I might tell you, “Oh, I don’t watch TV,” and that would be true, but only because I can’t figure out how to work all our remotes. When I can get a kid to turn on the television for me, however, I am happy to watch marathons of “Cops,” “Hoarders” and “My 600-Pound Life.”

When I have my phone out in public, I’d like you to think that I am a busy, connected person, doing a lot of important stuff. No. I am most likely looking at slide shows of stupid tattoos or plastic surgery gone wrong or videos of what happens when squirrels steal Go Pro cameras.

That’s how I really roll.

There: I said it.

I’m Going To Be OK With That

We’ve all heard, and used, that old saying, “Nothing’s perfect.”

So, why do I have such a hard time convincing myself not to run my life as if there is such a thing?

What do we even mean by “perfect”? What, for example, is the definition of a perfect movie or book or house or meal? Aren’t those answers all subjective?

I looked up “perfection” on Wikipedia, where there was an explanation of how people have contemplated perfection through the centuries. To me, it sounds like Plato, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke et al had way too time on their hands. A great deal of thought, for example, went into answering the questions, “What is the perfect number?” and “What is the perfect shape?”

The Wikipedia entry also pointed out that the root of the word “perfect” comes from the Latin “perfectio,” meaning “complete.”

Which reminds me of one of my favorite sayings: “Done is better than perfect.”

In other places, I’ve read the advice not to confuse “excellence” with “perfection.”

Ah, now I feel like I am getting somewhere.

“Perfect” is this weirdly fraught term, describing something that doesn’t exist, that many people, including me, use to drive themselves crazy. Or as sofilee on Urban Dictionary put it, “perfect” is “fiercely overrated and non-existent.”

Deciding that your goal is to be or to create something “perfect” strikes me as the same as labeling yourself or someone else “stupid” or “lazy,” words I hate.  Like “stupid” and “lazy,” it’s just this ill-defined, judgy word; it doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty of what you are doing and how to make it better -- or if you even need to.

It’s just a way to beat yourself up.

I’m going to listen to Salvador Dali, who said, “Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.”

Negative Talk

I will always remember the time my daughter’s math teacher told me she was making progress working on my daughter’s habit of “negative self-talk.”

I not only negative self-talk; I negative everybody-talk. You could say I am an equal-opportunity negative talker.

When I don’t like something, when something doesn’t agree with me, it feels very natural to open my mouth and say so. But then I was bemused to see my other child, my son, complain about his homework the year he started high school. It took him longer to complain about it than it did to do it, which, of course, as his mother, I pointed out to him. (Part of my job.)

And I have come to realize that it’s a real bummer to listen to someone’s negative talk about everything.

What you take in from around you does affect how you feel. Just spend a few hours watching “My 600-Pound Life” and gory true-crime shows and Fox News to prove that.

So, in the interests of making the world a happier place for myself and those around me, I’ve decided to break my negative-talk habit.

However, this is how it’s been going:

Me, in car: “Move it, you stupid piece of shit … Oh, damn! I did it again!”

My son points out that I am now doing double negative talk.

This isn’t going to be easy.

Oh! That’s negative talk again, isn’t it?

Crap.