It sets up expectations of how we should live. These expectations encompass everything: our clothes, our behavior, our eating habits, our ability to hold a conversation, etc. We are graded by our friends, our family, and Pinterest. (How does the party you threw compare to everyone else's? Just look on Pinterest and find out!) We strive to win. We see that there is a standard by which we are measured. If we fall short of that standard, we are the losers.
Such societal demands affect the personal whatchamacallit. You know, those personal standards. We establish rules for ourselves. We can fail ourselves.
That's an awesome truth about humanity. It's a consequence of our self-awareness & rationality. I can see myself, as I am, and I can also "see myself" as I want to be. I can compare those two realities of me... one presently real, the other hypothetically, futuristically real.
It's awesome in the strict sense of awesome. It makes your balloon of emotion fill with awe. Ok, that's sappy. It's awesome. It's neat. It's freaking cool that we can do that.
It's also terrifying & can be debilitating.
Human beings are little balls of potential (or big, if you prefer to think of yourself as big). (Technically, we are actual. We wouldn't exist actually if we weren't actual. There is so much more that we can do than what we are currently doing. That's what makes us both actual and potential. Only God is pure actuality. End of philosophy tangent.) We are capable of change.
Motion, or change, requires a direction & an end goal. (Oh, shut up, Newton.) So where is our goal? I don't know about you, but my goal is Heaven. That eternal, glorious, perfect, painless, joyful, thankful, happy life for which Jesus suffered death and then destroyed death so that we could participate in it.
It's perfection.
But I'm not perfect.
I'm aiming for perfection.
But if I only set that far-off goal, I am setting myself up for utter frustration. Because I won't ever be perfect. That's going to require some serious purgatory time. Sigh. So I set myself that goal: Heaven. But in the meantime, I aim for progress. I aim for baby steps.
I can do progress. I can do better than right now.
I can't do perfect. I can change my imperfection, though. I can make it less imperfect.
I may fail. Epically. Ok, I will fail epically. But tripping and falling on your face is less traumatic while attempting a baby step than plummeting into a wide, deep chasm while trying to hurtle a great canyon.
(this post inspired by the above image. that i found on pinterest. hehe.)
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