I haven’t selfied today, so I’ll let Grace Anne show off her cute Bow Tie o’ Last Sunday before she got in a fancy polka dot dress for church. See, her bow is on the ballerina costume emblem on her chest.
So….. I’ve been writing here about wanting to just un-me myself, cuz I keep needing to re-learn the lesson of using moderation in assisting folks in solving their own problems. When I do too much, I short-change myself and disappear, which makes me realize I really don’t want to change into someone I’m not. I just want myself to grow to be better at being me. I think we all want that for ourselves.
But why do we make the same mistakes again and again? Yesterday, I said that one reason is because we are familiar with the pattern. It feels comfortable to us. We feel safe in a pattern we’ve set, if only because we’re used to it.
However, I think there’s a much bigly-er reason we get stuck in our patterns of behavior that replay our weaknesses. What complicates our battles with our own personal deficiencies is the fact that our weaknesses are usually intricately tied to our strengths. And we don’t want to chance giving up our strengths.
For example, I think most of us will agree that helping others is a good way to be. Helping others, to the detriment of ourselves is not so good. We have to keep learning how to harness all the bells and whistles of our helping, so we don’t collapse in self-neglect. Ideally, we want our characteristic strengths to grow, while our characteristic weaknesses diminish. So although it is true in some sense that we must lose ourselves in order to find ourselves, it’s also true that we can lose ourselves in helping others to the point that our “self” can starve to death. If that happens, we are of no use to anyone. We have made it impossible to love our neighbors. Now, that’s what I call a sin.
To use a car metaphor, the long and short of it is that I had been speeding around for others a bit recklessly, until I had no speed with which to move. My tank wasn’t just empty, it finally rusted out. My wheels were stuck in a mud puddle of my own making too. I spun my wheels out of helpless anger, knowing fully well that I was only throwing mud and making deeper ruts. I gotta remember to not do that again. Y’all know exactly what I’m sayin’.
As a decrepit old gal these days, my “me” is like the muddy used car. Folks, I’m never gonna be a new car. I’m pretty much AS IS. But used cars can be detailed, so I’m also AS I WILL BECOME. I wanna be a continually NEW used car, regularly detailing myself with mostly snazzerrific bow ties.
End of deep thoughts.
BTW You know how I find connections everywhere I look? Here I am posting about the good and bad of helping others, and what did my fortune cookie tell me at lunch today? “Life’s greatest privilege is being able to help someone in need.” Duh! I kid you not.