An Epiphany on the Turnpike

You know how sometimes you’re driving down the highway – maybe you’re listening to an audiobook or some music, just minding your own self – and suddenly a thought almost audibly clicks in place in your brain, so loudly it makes you wince a little? No? Just me?

Well, shit. That happened to me this evening. I was driving to work, minding my own business, and my stupid brain starts telling me truths.

It’s about fear, y’all. This Good Madness – it’s about fighting fear. Up until this evening, I thought it was about doing some interesting things and having adventures and talking about life and love and important thoughts with people that I love – and it is, absolutely, of course – but at the core of this year is a shit-ton of fear fighting.

I have always been a perfectionist from the first moments I can remember. Maybe it’s the oldest-child birth order, maybe it’s genetics, maybe it’s from my dad saying “They don’t give A+s??” when I brought home my straight A report card for years.

Whatever the cause (and I do think it’s largely genetic, actually), perfectionism has been my constant companion for the past nearly 50 years. It’s definitely made me into a driven person and a life-long learner, but it has also made me f-ing TERRIFIED of failure. And because of that, I have passed up a lot of interesting opportunities and experiences along the way. It still keeps me from reaching out when I need help. And for the longest time, it kept me from being vulnerable and authentic and flying my freak flag – and authenticity and uniqueness are core values for me.

Fear and its faithful partner perfectionism have made me miss a lot in the past. When I saw that my daughter was dealing with some pretty severe perfectionism and anxiety of her own, I made a decision to cut out my crap and work towards modeling for her a non-perfect and authentic life. It’s a work in progress, but the Jen of today is significantly changed from the Jen of 10 years ago – and for the better, I hope.

So, when I realized that my Good Madness 50 List is really about fear-fighting and tackling so many of the things that I’ve been putting off, in so many cases because of perfectionism and fear of failure, it felt a little bit like a punch in the head.

BECAUSE OF COURSE IT IS ABOUT FEAR-FIGHTING!

Losing that fear or at least getting past it and trying out these new skills or experiencing these new adventures is a fight against my perfectionism and fear of failure. Hell, putting these words into the world is TERRIFYING for me, and 99.99% of me wants to crawl under my desk and go back and delete it all because it’s not perfect.

But if I wait until it’s perfect, I’ll never do it. I’ll never grow. I’ll never learn. I’ll never experience the things that I so want to experience.

And that, my friends, if FAR more f-ing terrifying to me now than the thought of being imperfect is.

So, give me all of the doing and growing and learning and experiencing. I’ll take it with a thankful heart, though I might still crawl under the desk for a minute before I take a deep breath and dive in.