It is here… 2021, and you know what… nothing changed! So many people have said over and over again, I am done with 2020, let’s move to 2021 things will be better if we just add a 1 instead of a 0 at the end of the year. That’s not really how change actually works. In fact, that’s not how life works. You can’t just expect inherent issues or an unfortunate situation to go away just because you moved to a new day or even a new year. You have to put in the work, and dare I say sometimes you have to “adult” to push for the change you expect to see to move into the next phase of your life.
I don’t know about you all, but I expected to start out 2021 at least with a glass of champagne in hand, possibly a cute man giving me an unexpected kiss, and laughing and having a blast with friends and family. Strangely all of those things happened, but in totally unexpected ways. I definitely had multiple glasses of champagne in hand, both of my very good looking brothers showered me with love and cheek kisses as we rang in 2021, and we all laughed, danced and truly brought in 2021 in the best possible way.
What also happened, while surrounded by the love of family and friends, I walked into 2021 holding onto the same sh*t from 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017… you get the picture, and that sh*t almost destroyed me and the family and friends around me. I have a lot of pride, but I also have a lot of high expectations for myself. I don’t like to make mistakes, so I put a lot of effort into being an expert both in my professional life and my personal life. I take pride in learning what I don’t know, and trying to become a better version of myself at all times. The problem with that is, you can’t be so focused on becoming better, that you don’t focus on working through the reality of being you.
In true transparency, I have a huge trust issue. You can call it a product of spending 6 years with a pedophile, psychopath, but that would be taking the easy way out. Counseling and therapy have helped me understand how to move forward through trauma, and my trust issues truly wrap around not wanting to put myself in a situation where I can’t control the outcomes and could potentially get hurt. That’s also secretly disguised as control issues… I know… you didn’t see that coming did you!
The higher expectations I set for myself, the more I try to perfect the person I am striving to be, the more I find my pride growing, and the more I detach from people so I don’t fall… well as the saying goes, Pride ABSOLUTELY Goeth Before A Fall. Instead of working on my flaws and my issues with trust, I irrationally projected them onto others. I said some really terrible things to some really amazing family and friends all because I hadn’t dealt with my internalizing of my own problems.
So what happens next? You make a choice to grow, you make a choice to put in the work, you make a choice to not just say “new year new me,” but to instead understand the current you. I had to make a choice to reach into my faith, and hear God saying “are you ready to release the perfection and allow the imperfection to help you be you.” I also had to listen to God say, “go apologize to the people you hurt because you decided to be an irrational a**” Truth hurts sometimes God, truth hurts, but truth also produces growth, reduces pride, and replaces it with humility, grace and perfect imperfection.
Pride Goeth Before A Fall but truth and grace will support you as you pick yourself back up.
