Anatomy of Failure

I have often wondered why the opinions of others mean so much to me. Why I feel the need to live up to other people's standards, no matter what I do. That gets hard to do, and it's hard to deal with. I have enough issues with confidence, and add 'being super self conscious that she's everything to everyone' into the mix, and the confidence takes a big dive, fast. Because I can't be everything to everyone all the time. And I know that. But I still feel like a failure in some fashion when I think that I've let people down.

I have felt quite often this past year that I have let people down. My husband and my kids, in particular. Things didn't work out the way we expected them to, and I have felt since January that if I could have done things differently weeks/months/years ago that I could have prevented the deterioration. It's a typical roller coaster- "If I had done abc... If he had done xyz..." back and forth in the ebb and flow of uncertainty and determination. There have been nights when I've been able to look my kids in the eyes and honestly say "It's going to be alright." And there have been nights when I couldn't see straight because I had been crying so much. I kept wondering what I did wrong, how I could stop the heartbreak, how I could change things. And I know - truly, I do - that it's not all my fault. And I am realizing that things may or may not have a different outcome had he or I behaved differently.

I am beginning to accept that I did not fail, that I have not let myself or my kids down. I still care very much what he, and others, think of me and my parenting abilities. But I'm trying to not let it have a negative affect on me. He and I are very different people, and in some ways very different parents. I tend to run out of patience a little quicker than he does (something I have been working very hard on). He tends to be a little stricter than I am (something else I am working hard to improve). I have to believe that I am a good parent, because... well, I am. My kids are three of the best behaved, well-mannered, pleasant kids that I've had the pleasure of knowing. They are all intelligent, well spoken, polite, fun-loving kids. They will never, ever want for love or attention. As a parent, I did not fail them.

I may have failed my own expectations, but expectations can give us a false sense of security. Just because we think we know how something should be, or we think we know what we want or what's best for us, that may not necessarily be so. When we drop our expectations of ourselves and others, we don't get let down as much. We don't feel like we fail. That's a very difficult course to follow, however. We are tied to our expectations, and get very disappointed when things don't work out as we thought they should have.

But rather than seeing it as failure, I'm learning to look at my experiences as opportunities. I have been given the opportunity to discover myself, and in some ways reinvent myself. I can improve on how I was. I can learn from my mistakes and do things differently in the future. I have met new people and done new things that I wouldn't have done otherwise. I still do care about what others think of me, and how I'm perceived as a parent, but the AHA comes in accepting myself. I can't control what others think of me, I can only be responsible for what I think of me. With the encouragement, support and love that I have felt from so many friends, there is no reason for me to doubt for one minute my ability to be a good parent, or my purpose of being a good person. Thank you for the AHA!