Nothing to Prove
This weekend, I attended a wedding for a longtime friend. My college roommate and I met the bride nearly forty years ago. This wedding felt very different from our weddings in early twenties, when we all thought things had to be just so.
It was a beautiful outdoor wedding venue with an incredible mountain-top view. We all did our best to navigate the residual wind and rain from Hurricane Isaias, even having to push the wedding back a day.
There was a lot of last-minute organizing, dancing around the blustery weather in the covered outdoor pavilion. No sooner did we lay the table cloths down did the wind rip them back off. We improvised until they could be weighted down and then moved on to the next thing.
The bride-to-be was still in blue jeans, working as hard as everyone else to pull things together, despite guests starting to arrive. At one point, she just called things like they were:
Hey, we're working things out. Yes, there are challenges, but I'm not stressed. This is an informal wedding and you all are my closest family and friends. I know I can just be myself and I'm so glad you’re here.
Sharing that she was comfortable with how the set-up was unfolding gave everyone else permission to relax and know it was okay if things were a little different and less traditional.
I wonder why it takes so many years to be comfortable being our imperfect selves? We loved her just as much forty years ago as we do today. She knew it and she didn't have anything to prove. She had one main person to please regarding the event: herself. This was her day. She had a vision of the beauty and style that she wanted, and it was accomplished with help from her friends and family.
Perhaps it takes this long for some of us to realize life is just life. There is no perfect day, perfect relationship, or perfect event. Most of the time, the weighty expectations we carry are self-imposed.
I've spent many years thinking things had to be a certain way, otherwise it meant something was wrong with me. That I wasn't a smart-enough or good-enough person.
I grew up feeling inadequate and started playing the “proving” game early. I can remember being in fourth grade, making sure my teachers loved me and considered me one of their best students.
From friendships to employers, I worked to be admirable and above-average, hoping the extra effort would compensate for feeling flawed and not as “normal” as everyone else seemed to be.
I heard something in a movie recently that I'll never forget. The main character was challenged by what his son thought he was trying to prove. The father answered, "Proving things is a young man's game."
Isn't that the truth?
Proving things and pleasing people are exhausting. It takes a lot of energy to stay in step with what we imagine is expected of us.
The movie character was no longer trying to prove anything; he was simply doing what made him happy for the sake of being happy. Same with my sweet friend on her wedding day.
Life becomes easier and more enjoyable when we decide it's okay to be who we are and do things the way we want to, rather than the way we think someone else thinks we should.
That’s easy to know, harder to do.
Some of us are not necessarily done learning that lesson just because we've gotten older. (My hand is raised!)
Recently, I asked my neighbor to pick something up for me and drop it off at my house while I was out of town. I had this sudden thought: I hope my cut flower garden still has lots of blooms, so it looks pretty. Otherwise, it's kind of crazy-looking to have wildly growing, six-foot-tall flower stalks taking over a traditional landscaped area.
When my cut flowers quickly outgrew the container we built for them, I had to dig them up and plant them anywhere and everywhere I could. I had no idea how big they would get.
There were many great lessons from that new gardening experience. If you missed them, here they are in order:
Back to my concern about my neighbor's impression. What will she think of all these unruly flower stalks crowding out the more orderly landscaping we originally planted?
Then I thought, who cares what she thinks?
I love coming home and seeing my cut flowers growing wild right next to the house. It's conveniently close and makes it easy to monitor blooms for my beautiful bouquets throughout the house.
And it's my house. It makes me happy. I don't need landscaping that makes my neighbor happy.
It's funny how easily we can slip into worrying about what someone else might think, even when we're doing something we really love.
We can know better yet catch ourselves falling back into approval-seeking. We may still go there, but we don't have to stay there.
We have lots of things in common with one another, but our differences are what truly make us beautiful. And that makes life more interesting. We don’t need a world full of clones.
Flowers are proof that we are meant to be as unique as we are inspired to be. Why else would there be so many different types of flowers?
Maybe our kids and grandkids will learn earlier that it's not only okay to be themselves, but that the variety is a blessing to everyone?
The more comfortable we become with who we are, the less we need to prove. And when we are content with ourselves and not seeking approval, ironically, others enjoy being around us more.
Because our need to be accepted doesn't just affect how we feel about ourselves. Sometimes, without realizing it, approval-seeking negatively affects the very relationships we're trying so hard to build.
More on that next time…
Does today's meditation resonate with you? Please share your voice in our FTG Readers Group on Facebook. Your hopes, thoughts and dreams matter to me.
