do you get tired?
tired of the driving and the striving and the movement
desiring something —
slower?
do you get tired
exhausted
by the constant push
to be better
to be stronger
to be more
to be e x c e l l e n t
to be incredible
…or is it just me?
i saw one of those real cute (read: ugh) flashback posts on my facebook recently. i sometimes think the only reason i still have facebook is so that i can remove the cringe posts i wrote in 2012… anyone else? it’s been helpful for content purposes. helpful to see the ways i was taught to think vs the ways i have since explored. helpful reminders of how far i’ve come. still cringe af though.
the post was from a dinner my church hosted. we were promoting the Alpha course — a program designed to suck in and convert non-Christians. a program designed to “answer life’s tough questions”. it’s interesting that we would promote that, since we’d never address christianity’s tough questions. those were swept under the carpet and hidden from view, along with anybody who brought them forward.
we’d planned the event for months, with the entire staff team on board to make it happen. the events manager was bringing in volunteers, i was working as the database assistant, so i’d made sure we had all the visitor bags ready. plus, i’d furiously messaged anyone who still had me as a facebook friend from school to invite (it’d only been 12 months or so, after all). i got a few hits with the free dinner situation, but naturally, minimal follow through. they dodged a bullet.
the photo was of a high contrast, purple lit, auditorium. there were tables filling the space, complete with white cloths and chair covers with bows. i can almost feel it looking back — the energy. the excitement. the exhaustion.
because this event, it followed the standard of all of our events — excellent.
it was the standard of everything we celebrated. excellence was what we strived for. it’s what our leaders promoted, what they encouraged. excellence, and nothing less, for the kingdom of god.
*shudders in learned perfectionism and anxiety*
it felt as though if you weren’t excellent, you were nothing.
excellence or exile.
and doesn’t our society follow the same structure?
doesn’t our capitalist work-hustle culture drive us to feel the same?
i've been thinking a lot about rest, lately. and how my perfectionism, my learned drive for something "other", my anxiety — can all get in the way of rest.
i've been thinking about excellence, and how we can get caught up in being the best, or nothing. but maybe we don’t have to choose between excellence and exile, after all.
isn't it better to be something than it is to be nothing?
even if that something isn't perfect?
even if that something isn’t excellent?
even if that something isn't even... good?
the rise of “quiet-quitting” shows us that there is a drive to go above and beyond. a desire to succeed. to make the promotion. to get the bonus. to buy the house. and the second one. to have everything in perfect order. to have the best position and the best salary and the best and most incredible instagram. to have the clean house before you invite guests over. to polish your tiles and your carpets and your personality and your behaviour and only use the nice dishes for guests, obviously.
church culture utilised this capitalist/Western way of thinking. and they used it well.
church culture taught me to make sure my house was spotless before people visited because that excellence was how we showed how excellent god was.
church culture taught me to work myself to exhaustion because the exhaustion doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, only that people see the excellence of god through my work.
church culture taught me that doing something because i love it, even if i’m not good at it, is a waste of time, when i could be using my gifts — the things i’m good at and that “god has given me skills in” — to show off the church.
it was exhausting.
it was empty.
because polished excellence, while makes sense in a company driving profits, isn’t real.
your connections become polished. the ideas you have of others are a pedestal. everything is grandeur. and we keep building on that polish and pedestal. we keep missing the real shit, the tears, the feelings, the ugly stuff that makes life real and worth living.
i don’t want excellence anymore. i don’t know that i ever did.
i want messy house dinners and lounging in your pjs with your people. i want conversations that stutter over the point and circle round for hours because they’re honest. i want unwashed kitchen sinks because everyone’s been too busy living. i want cat fur on my coat because meeting my friend was more important than polishing my clothes. i want messy hair after sweaty football games and eating pizza for dinner and bad art — my god i want bad art. i want to make it and i want to see it. i want to see the poetry and the painting and the music that show that people want to try, want to live, more than they want to hustle and succeed.
i want the journey. i want the magic of the mess. i want the rest that comes with knowing perfection and excellence aren’t always worth striving for. i want the rest that comes with real.
i’m signing off on the drive for excellence.
i’ll take the real shit instead, thanks.
Yes! Thank you. Learning self-compassion and being in the messiness of my home and process is something I'm learning and enjoying very much.