Good Enough

This is the fourteenth draft I’ve written for today’s post over the course of the last week, each talking about something completely different.

That right there is my busy and bizarre ADHD brain at work – many things started, and even more things left unfinished – because they just aren’t good enough.

I didn’t finish or publish my book for nearly a decade – because it wasn’t good enough.

I didn’t turn my passion for baking into a business – because I wasn’t good enough.

I found any and every way to escape reality – because nothing was good enough.

Especially myself.

This is what stops us from sharing our gifts with the world; and maybe even more importantly, with ourselves, who is usually the one person we are afraid of disappointing the most (and also the one with the biggest expectations).

Because we don’t have the strength for another failure or the endurance to finish the lap. It’s always easier to leave things unfinished than to finish them and fail.

Until it isn’t.

If the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that courage and vulnerability are possibly the best investments we can make in ourselves – and they come with the greatest risks because we are their own worst critics. That cynical critic who is always waiting there, always crouched inside ourselves, always ready with a laundry list of reasons why we should’ve just stopped while we were ahead.

That the guilt and remorse is a lighter load than carrying the weight of something not being just quite good enough.

Addiction is a funny little thing (and we all know that it isn’t very funny at all, regardless of which end of it you’re on). But, it turns you inside out and dangles the carrot to lead you one way then scolds you for not going the other. It uses two hands, always, to pull you each and every way it can, wherever and whenever it can – not to mention however it can. And, just when you think you’re getting close enough to something good enough for a change, it grabs the wheel and steers you right over the cliff.

Because falling is better than failure.

And we let it.

There is a piece I wrote a long time ago on this blog (and it’s in the book) called The Three Me’s. At the time, I thought it was about my at-the-time-husband and his reaction to having to handle “all of me” every day.

Three of me, to be exact.

The morning Shawn, the afternoon, half-in-the-bag Shawn, and the evening, who-knows-what-sort-of-monster-shit-show-we’re-entertaining-tonight Shawn.

But now, 5 or more years later (it’s really all becoming a blur at this point) I’m coming to realize I wrote that piece about myself.

It’s only been recently that someone noted that I clearly have ADHD (who knew? I’ve been too busy bouncing off walls and projects and rock bottoms my whole life to have slowed down enough to notice), and it’s also not the first time someone has.

Including my doctor.

And a therapist or two.

And maybe at least three-hundred books and Ted Talks.

When you start annoying yourself and can’t sleep because there’s too many things to do (to avoid finishing the not good enough things you’ve already started and left unfinished, left rotting and strewn into every corner of your life) you begin to reach a new, weird level of tiredness. A different kind of tiredness that isn’t about your body, but your mind – where good enough becomes unattainable, where the comforts of the past seem softer and kinder than the hard sharp climb required to reach the other side.

Because you’ve grown too tired of trying to go through it instead.

Going “through it” was the only way I reached where I am, to be honest (and looking at your own life, you’ll see it’s exactly the same for you). And yes, sometimes the path you carved wasn’t as straight and narrow as you would have liked, and sometimes (probably) it took a lot longer than you had planned or hoped for.

It probably wasn’t exactly good enough – but then again, it was – because here we are.

Sometimes, you just turned around, walked back, and left the mountain half-carved, hollow, and still impassable because you’d rather exhaust yourself a different way.

I’m smart enough – and you’re smart enough – to know better.

We know better.

Let’s be honest.

We know what we’re doing. We sometimes just don’t know how to not do it, because we can’t slow down enough to remember why we’re doing “it” in the first place.

This whole post is a great example – here, there, and everywhere – which is exactly how I’m feeling today, and lately in general.

Scattered.

The Three Me’s are sometimes hard to handle, when you only have two hands and you’re busy doing a half-ass job at trying to accomplish half-a-dozen other things at the same time.

The first me always wants what best – what he knows will serve not only myself but others. The second one, however, usually has different plans and a mind of his own; it’s the black to my white, the sun to my moon, and the devil on my other shoulder while my conscience is too tired to deal with me anymore, collapsed on the other. He’s the one that prefers doing the fun stuff, instead of the hard stuff.

The third me, though?

He’s the shit show.

He’s the one that chases squirrels and mirages, walking through deserts to get to unattainable pools while three steps to the left is a lake. He’s the one that pokes holes in my gas tank and places forks in the road. He’s the one that sits on top of my head instead of my shoulders, because it’s easier to dangle a carrot from there to lead me wherever he wants, leaning over to whisper it’s better this way, because it’s a hell of a lot harder that way.

And sadly, he’s usually the one that wins.

Monkeys on your back have nothing on the ones inside your own mind.

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con·fi·dence

noun

The feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.

1. The state of feeling certain about the truth of something.

2. A feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.

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And there it is.

An appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities – which leads me to think the opposite would have to be self-doubt: the fuel that the carrot-dangling monkey on my head runs on.

I’m not quite sure where to put everything that I just unpacked, now that I’ve unpacked it (and dragged you along for the ride). Just like a suitcase you meticulously filled with things you don’t need but are bringing with you on your trip anyways, all those things don’t always fit back in the same way every again once you’ve strewn them all over the floor.

I’d love to have a more poetic ending for this post, but, well…today I can’t seem to find one that’s just quite good enough.