Personal Narrative-Pipe Cleaner
I breathe deeply and watch my hand stir my coffee with a skinny red straw, hoping the swirling motions would mesmerize me out of my anxiety. I sit down at the table and snag an orange pipe cleaner, counting down the minutes till 9:30. I stare at the program once again, hoping my name would magically disappear from it. But no. Among my notes scratched while bouncing in the car, was my name several times in bold black letters. Why, oh why, did I agree to do this? I free my matted pipe cleaner from a sweaty fist and reach for my coffee, hoping to preoccupy my hands. I take the obligatory sip and think, “Eww!”
A red pipe cleaner appears in my hand. I find another sip of coffee in my mouth and shake my head, wondering how it got there. Yuck again! Before I can torture myself anymore, I dump my coffee and look around to see if anyone had noticed I was stalling. Yes. …show more content…
On the car ride home I try to think what went wrong. I wanted to hide my face like a criminal. My presentation was utterly embarrassing. But amazingly, people came up to me afterwards, complementing the great job I did.
I’ve always strived for excellence and set high standards for myself. But my standards have a tendency to be so high they couldn’t be met, or are only met with great difficulty. That's why I’m a chronic perfectionist. I expected to confidently walk up to that podium without a need for notes and speak eloquently. No matter what, student, friend, or daughter, I crave perfection. I was so scared of messing up, I ended up doing that very thing. It's natural to have negative feelings when you fail, but I attached all this negative feeling to how I generally felt about myself.
I admit it, I am a perfectionist. But that presentation taught me to see failures in a whole new light. Anything short of perfection is not the end of the world. We have a choice. Look for the lesson we are meant to learn, or succumb.
I learned nobody's perfect, not even me. And that’s
A red pipe cleaner appears in my hand. I find another sip of coffee in my mouth and shake my head, wondering how it got there. Yuck again! Before I can torture myself anymore, I dump my coffee and look around to see if anyone had noticed I was stalling. Yes. …show more content…
On the car ride home I try to think what went wrong. I wanted to hide my face like a criminal. My presentation was utterly embarrassing. But amazingly, people came up to me afterwards, complementing the great job I did.
I’ve always strived for excellence and set high standards for myself. But my standards have a tendency to be so high they couldn’t be met, or are only met with great difficulty. That's why I’m a chronic perfectionist. I expected to confidently walk up to that podium without a need for notes and speak eloquently. No matter what, student, friend, or daughter, I crave perfection. I was so scared of messing up, I ended up doing that very thing. It's natural to have negative feelings when you fail, but I attached all this negative feeling to how I generally felt about myself.
I admit it, I am a perfectionist. But that presentation taught me to see failures in a whole new light. Anything short of perfection is not the end of the world. We have a choice. Look for the lesson we are meant to learn, or succumb.
I learned nobody's perfect, not even me. And that’s