تَخاريف نُص مِيتر عَقلُه طَار (35) - Not Good Enough!

Fifteen years ago, I was a just a kid celebrating the beginning of a new millennium. While I am getting older, I still did not move on. I did not get over the memories and experiences engraved within. I am still trying. I am still going through the same ups and downs. I am still stuck in a grey area between who I am, who I wanted to be and how the society wants me to be. I am never good enough. I am two years older but yet three more steps behind. And the older I grow, the wider my choices become, the freer I am and the portrait of how hazy and grayish my life is finds its way to the shed of light.

Sometimes I am downright rude to myself. I make fall short of my own expectations and instead of treating it as a learning opportunity, I beat myself up about it and end up with bad weeks of self-doubt. The pressure coming from the atmosphere, peers and family is enough to completely make us broken inside. If you don't have the right job, marry at the right age, have the right lifestyle, behave in the right way and so forth, we assume we are just not good enough nor accepted. Did I forget the purpose of living? Did I lose track of these little things that makes me genuinely happy? Why is it never 'good enough'? It always feels incomplete, unfinished and never quite good enough.

It is so frustrating when regardless of how much you do, or how hard you try, it is never good enough. It is even worse when you keep telling yourself that you are not good enough. Because that is what I did. I think I sell myself short sometimes. I am afraid to ask for what I want, because a part of me is afraid that I don't deserve it. Even after fifteen years, I was still not good enough. Even on good days, I felt like no matter how many special efforts I made, there was so much more I could have done. No matter how much I went an extra mile on a day, I could have done more or I could have kept up with it better in the first place. I could not allow myself to feel happy over taking my sister out for dinner, because I could have brought her something as a gesture. I could not feel like an adequate daughter or friend or sister. because I always could have done better.

I often feel doomed from the start telling myself 'What is the point of trying?' People I know told me over and over that I was enough. I wanted to believe them and they were just trying to be nice. Even my parents; they loved me. They still love me. But they let perfectionism undermine their guidance. I believed the lie that it always says it is never good enough and it could always be better. The lie that says that if we just worked harder, sacrificed more and stretchered ourselves a little slimmer, nothing would ever go wrong!

Honestly, this is not how life works. The resistance to 'what is' is what cause our suffering. Every day brings a choice. Choose to be miserable and you will find plenty to reasons. Happiness is allowing myself to be perfectly okay with 'what is,' rather than wishing for and worrying about 'what is not.'

So, what about now? I have started to realize that life is made up of the little moments. I am trying to stop trying to be perfect and embrace be who I am. It is taking longer and much more effort for some areas in my life. I still have a hard time ever feeling good about myself, what I believe in and what I do. Believing in myself, skills and talents is a journey, which has been deliberately delayed, but is worth it. The good days when I accomplish what I have on my to-do list and even the bad days when I am only physically capable of 'the bare minimum,' it all adds up to a life that is simply 'good enough.' It may be easier written than felt, but at least I do my best to acknowledge it. :)