(Part one of a two part series on the plight of perfectionism)
I’m not perfect. I don’t even want to be perfect. I just want to be good. Not well-behaved good. Good as in good at. That doesn’t sound unreasonable, does it?
I decided to visit my daughter in Christchurch via the Haast and Arthur’s Passes. Not the easiest route on a bike, even with my friend (electric motor) to help me up the hills.
By the numbers…
People blink as many as 15 to 20 times a minute, far more than needed to keep our eyes lubricated. So why do we do it?
We recently set up a food rescue service at Nelson Environment Centre and called it Kai Rescue. Rescue is the operative word because since we began five weeks ago we’ve rescued 5.8 tonnes of perfectly edible food – and that’s just from two of the seven Nelson supermarkets and a couple of one-off food producers.
I have a very healthy dose of self-loathing. But I think we all have a past of being whatever our story was, of feeling not good enough. It can propel you to work harder and do more, but it can also be a tremendous trap, and you can’t see beyond it. – Kim Cattarall
Last month, working up and down the country, I heard a question voiced by several women. Their concern was, “Am I doing enough?”
Endings are a natural, inevitable part of life.
Whether these endings come about in our jobs and careers, love and family life or other aspects of our social, recreational and community life, there is an inevitable emotional reaction. Life as we have known is no longer and there is a consequent feeling of being in transition or as a colleague put it – “total limbo land.”
I’m going to begin this column with indelicate references, so my apologies to sensitive readers. On Saturday morning I subjected myself to a particularly undignified event.
Me and the dentist are strangers but I know I’m in good company there. It’s not the childhood memories – though these linger and range from the scary whine of the drill to the dull ache which often followed. It’s not the money either (okay, it is) – dental work these days is brutally expensive.