The Self Proclaimed Imperfect Perfectionist

I missed a lay up today. The coach, the Vice Chancellor of the University and my former boss (I quit my job and am now in a new department, this is covered in a previous blog and hence i will leave this aside to get back to the drama occurring in this current blog. You should really catch up by reading the previous blog or the one before.) The coach, as I was saying, took me out of the game. It was not an easy lay up. It was one of those, I made a really nice move, was surrounded by giants measuring 6'2", maybe 6'3", when you are 5'5" they really seem like giants towering over you, almost like Ogres hungry for the ball which is their dinner.

I jumped. I was higher than them. (I can jump high, my dad told me so. For most people the encouragement my dad gave me would seem more out of duty, but my dad was honest when he said it. I know that he was honest because he and my mom one time agreed that I was a shrimp and told me so.) I hung in the air. I was so close. It was on my right side. I let it go with my right hand, I'm naturally left handed. The ball hit the backboard, the rim and came safely down with out going through the hoop. It was a missed lay up.

I jumped back up. I tipped the ball, the short giants didn't stop me. I hit the ball. It went up. It hit the backboard. It hit the rim. It came down without going through the net.

I missed a second lay up in a matter of 1 second, that's 00:00:01:00. The couch subbed me out. I rode the pine for the rest of the game. I have splinters on my butt.

For those of you wondering, I was playing in a faculty/staff vs. students basketball game to kick off Homecoming week at my university. As a point of note us, faculty/staff members, won in overtime.

I was really ticked off. I am a perfectionist. I hate missing even a single shot, let alone a lay up. I don't care how hard of a shot it is, if the ball hits rim I should have, could have made it go in.

Today, I finished an article for a magazine. I pitched an article about growing up in Foster Care. The magazine editors read some of my other material, including possibly this blog, and said, "Give us a 1000 words." I did. I wrote it. I finished it. I got so excited that I sent it to people to proofread, which is the right thing to do. I waited 25 minutes. I started to get anxious. What if it sucked? There's no way someone will publish my writing. I'm not that good. I'm a perfectionist it's probably not right and never will be. I proofread it one more time and sent it to the editor.

I got my first edit back from my people with red all over it. I had sent it to the editor too early. I knew it was too early. I know it was too early. I was so dissappointed. I thought I blew my chances because I got angry. What a stupid, stupid mistake! I'm a failure. After many revisions I sent an email to the editor, stating that I had read the article again and wanted to add/reword a couple things and that I would send an updated copy before the end of the week.

Not the impression I wanted to make. I hate when I make mistakes, especially simple ones. I hate when I miss lay ups. Yes, this is one of those blogs where I self-disclose some bit of information, but I must. You see the article was about growing up in foster care and I wrote this statement, "Those of us who come from these types of backgrounds are hard on ourselves. We do not need to be told what we are doing wrong. We have grown up believing that we were born wrong."

It's true. There are days that I go back to believing that I have one chance to fail or succeed. No matter how many times I prove this theory wrong it seems to haunt me like the ghost of some fish I caught. I've proved it wrong literally over and over again. I mean, I one time asked to be excused during the middle of an interview for my first professional job after graduate school because I had to use the rest room. I got up from the interview table, did my business and returned. I finished the interview and swore that I was done with that job possibility. I had failed. I had one chance and I failed. Needless to say, Twenty minutes later I got offered the second interview, three weeks later I got offered the job. I proved my theory wrong.

I know that my article is good, the one I've edited four plus times is better than the original I sent. But I am an imperfect perfectionist. I think that what I have will never be right and sometimes I hold so tightly to that thought that I cease to perform my best.

I think that there are many out there who hold so tightly to things, thinking that we only have one chance to fail or succeed. We only have one lay up, miss and sit, make and play. The reality of what I am relearning, because I never learned this as a child and many of us didn't, is that our failures, our misses don't make us failures. Its the way we get back up. Tomorrow I'll go play basketball and I'll make my lay ups. Today I'm editing my article and then sending it to the editor of a magazine, more confident than I was before. Who knows what will happen. But published or unpublished my success is in the effort of my learning, not in the consequences of a single mistake. That is something I can be proud of and with which I can stand having fully confidence that my past mistakes do not dictate my future successes. What we are to become remains solely up to us. I'm a good basketball player for a short guy one lay up will not persuade me otherwise.

I'm a self-proclaimed imperfect perfectionist. "Imperfect" being the key term that I'm most proud of.