Perfection Pressure

I don’t know about your microwave, but mine has this annoying little feature.  After your food heats up, it doesn’t just beep to let you know it’s done, but it continues beeping until you open the door.  I’m sure that whoever designed this thought of it as a friendly little reminder.  However,  in the real world I can’t remember a single time I ever put a burrito in the microwave and then within the two minutes it had to cook forgot I was hungry.  The reason I don’t go running to the microwave when it beeps is because I’m busy with something else.  I’m answering a text message, corralling the kids, and trying to clean up the soda I got on my shirt all at the same time.  So the beeping isn’t helpful, it’s a constant reminder of what I cannot do.

Many of us feel this way.  Maybe you are a student running from school to soccer practice to your part time job.  Maybe you are striving for that ideal weight, so you spend every waking moment trying to fit someone else’s image of beautiful.  Maybe you are a parent, trying to balance all the extra-curricular activities of your kids and still make time for your own schedule.  Maybe you are so busy with work that there doesn’t seem to be time for anything else in your life.  And there is always this pressure to do it all, all the time. 

We all know about peer pressure, where we are encouraged to do things we shouldn’t, but many of us give in to something just as devastating – perfection pressure.  We feel this need to do everything, and to do it all perfectly every time.  We want the perfect GPA, the perfect boyfriend, and the perfect list of accomplishments upon graduation.  We want the perfect home and the perfect car and the perfect job.  We want the perfect family that eats the perfect meal in the perfectly spotless kitchen.  But the problem is, we can’t do everything perfectly, and there’s this beeping in the back of your head, like my microwave, reminding you that you cannot do it all.  You try to silence the beeping by working harder, but you can’t. 

So I say embrace the beeping.  Let that microwave go on if it must.  You aren’t perfect, and you can’t do everything perfectly.  If God loves you even though you are less than perfect, then you should be able to love yourself that way too.  You can’t do it all perfectly every time; and that doesn’t make you a failure, it just makes you a human.  Don’t give in to the perfect pressure; just be the person God made you to be.