Monday, THERE YOU AT. I hope everyone had an *awesome* Father’s Day with your own fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, father-in-laws, godfathers, and any other father figure who holds a special place in yo’ heart.
Now, enter Monday.
Typically, the Monday after a holiday can feel especially Monday-ish. After a weekend of celebrating, family time, and being generally unplugged from any sorta typical Saturday-Sunday get-ish-done routine, it can feel like a slap in the face of but-I’m-not-ready-yet! I typically get hit *hard* with major anxiety come Sunday nights. Then, come Monday morning, it feels like an impossible chase + race to get #AllTheThings accomplished.
Weekend chores? Catch up on blog work? Inbox zero? Get ahead on any work? (LOL) Photoshoots? Grocery shopping?
There comes a point when you realize there are just so many things, and ain’t nobody got time.
You’ve gotta choose.
Chase perfection of it all, or chase happiness through it all?
Enter, today’s Monday Mantra:
Choose the chase – the chase of perfection, or the chase of happiness.
You cannot choose both chases, because they’re two different paths less traveled.
One, though, is impossible. It’s a never ending path, because it can never be realized – there is never an end point or final destination. That path is perfection, and its chase is a setup for failure from the getgo.
No matter how hard you try to become “perfect” – it’s just not going to happen. It’s not going to happen for any of us. The only perfect being out there died on a cross some 2,000 years ago. Perfection is this totally unattainable, staged idea in society that typically only drives us perfectionists nuts when we inevitably fall short at something. While it can be arguably good to chase after perfection in the spirit of self-betterment, I don’t know many perfectionists who are admittedly okay with falling short. I’ve been a perfectionist since the womb, and it drives me nuts if I don’t hit my own arbitrarily assigned standards. The chase for perfection goes on and on, but with every shortcoming comes the risk of thinking less of yourself – even considering the f-word (we’re talkin’ Failure).
Perfection is not the chase to choose.
The other chase, tho, is possible every single moment of every single day.
It’s neverending, but it’s more satisfying, because you can make it happen in the moments that matter most.
Enter, happiness.
Happiness and joy are two different things, but that’s a different Mantra entirely. 😉 When they say “choose happiness,” it can be hard, since happiness is temporal. Happiness comes and goes – happiness comes, happiness goes, sadness comes and sadness goes, then happiness is back at it again. To choose happiness everyday can really feel like this constant chase. But…it is. It’s a constant chase in pursuit of something that makes you feel good in some way in the moment. Maybe it’s happiness in your job, maybe it’s in your relationship…or it’s the happiness that comes from finding a 70% off sale, stumbling upon Halo Top ice cream at your local grocery store (bless), or getting new workout clothes that make you feel hot AF.
The chase to choose happiness is a lot more satisfactory than chasing perfection.
Happiness can be found in the seemingly smallest of moments if only we remember to acknowledge it as it comes. I don’t think of it as this deep satisfaction – that’s where joy comes in. But it’s the tiny bits of joy and, well, happiness, that come in little moments along the way.
And, happiness is subject to YOUR guidelines and yours alone. What makes you happy isn’t necessarily what makes someone else happy, and that’s A-OKAY. You can’t necessarily *control* what makes you happy – you just feel it.
Perfection, on the other hand, is oftentimes driven entirely by outside influence, whether we realize it or not.
We judge our own perfectionism based on how it “measures up” to society’s status quo – what we deem to be “better” or “best” – and we compare that to where we’re at now. Then, we judge ourselves. We consider ourselves to be less-than-perfect, and we risk that trickling down into less-than-worthy. The cycle of negativity starts there, and we’re left feeling perpetually dissatisfied with ourselves and our lives when we continually fail to reach this impossible pinnacle of perfectionism.
Ain’t nobody got time.
Choose the chase.
Choose happiness.
The moment you realize that you can find something happy in every moment, the moment your life becomes a helluvah lot happier.
Granted, of course not everything in life is happy.
Sometimes, life sucks. There are totally awful, sad, heartbreaking, uncontrollable circumstances that come before us that we’ve gotta face, and it’s not always easy, fun, or anything close to happy.
So…the chase continues.
Every rose has its thorn. For every downside, there’s an upside. Even if that upside is as seemingly simple + small as “I woke up today and have another day to try again.” Some people don’t even get that.
So, keep choosing the chase. Choose happiness. Keep choosing to chase that which can be attained time and time again, and acknowledge it in your life. Collect happy moments and hold onto them for all they’re worth, then go out and sprinkle them around for others to collect, too.
You choose the chase.
Which chase do you choose?
I’d lovelovelove to hear your thoughts on all of the above, cos it’s something that’s been on my mind quite a bit lately. There have just been so many moments where I’ve had to step back and acknowledge the fact that perfect is not something worth chasing, unless you’re trying to be unhappy. Point blank period.
So, let’s chat about it?
ALSO, a new #AskE post is *finally* hitting le blog this week – WOO! Fina-freakin-lly. If you’ve got Q’s you want A’d, on literally anything + everything, drop ’em in this quick little form and I’ll add ’em to the list!
Have a very merry Monday.