I mentioned last time that I've been going through a 12-step program at my church and I had my second real, "sit down and answer the questions" small group meeting tonight. Among the reasons stated in the last post, part of the reason I haven't written much lately is because the material we're covering in my small group is very emotionally intense and I've been getting my tear-your-living-guts-out-and-painfully-expose-yourself-to-others fix through that. I still kind of hate the idea of sitting in a group of people with "real problems," because to do so is basically admitting by association that I am one of them; that I belong there; that, somehow, my problems really are as bad as I've always feared them to be.
Even though it's only been a few weeks, I've stuck to the process pretty faithfully and it's not totally without reward. I started going to the open group stuff at the first of the year and realized two things pretty early on. One, even though it feels like every molecule in my body is screaming out against my being there throughout the entirety of the program, I always leave being glad that I went. Two, I always realize something about myself or my situation(s) in life that I wouldn't have stumbled across on my own had I not been there. I've never felt like it was a mistake for me to have gone and I've always left feeling more enlightened about (or, at least, better adjusted to) my circumstances. Tonight was no exception and I wanted to take a few minutes before I go to bed to reflect on something that dawned on me mid-meeting.
I am, for those unaware, not an athlete. With the exception of my dad signing me up for little league, I never played sports, I don't watch sports and the idea of doing so holds absolutely no interest to me in the slightest. I would literally rather slam my hand in a door than watch a football game. Literally. I reiterate the point because most people think I'm being hyperbolic or facetious when I say that, but I would honestly be more intrigued by a Discovery channel show about the artificial insemination of cattle than anything including and/or pertaining to The Final Four (a reference, itself, that I'm not entirely sure I get. I think it's college basketball, but I genuinely don't know [or care]). One of the main reasons I've never had any interest in sports is because I'm not interested in doing anything that I am not immediately, on some level, good at. If I don't have an inherent aptitude for something, if I have to spend any time at all working to grasp the fundamentals or, particularly in the area of sports, working to get my body into the proper condition to be able to do whatever it is I'm trying to do, I will have gotten bored and quit long before they get to the part about explaining the rules.
I'm especially bad when it comes to practice. In fact, I don't even like the philosophical concept of "practice." I don't want to practice. I just want to do. I despise repetition, and how would one go about describing the acts of running drills and ironing out plays without using the word "repetitive?" Don't make me start over and do the exact same thing again. If I'm just going to do it again, why did I do it the first time? Let's get the thing done and move on to something else.
Tonight, I realized that the thing inside me that makes me feel this way is the same thing that berates me with guilt and shame over my own past mistakes and failures. There's a voice in my head that I call "The Perfectionist Little Shit" (let's call it the P.L.S. for brevity's sake) that screams at me for everything I've ever done wrong. I screwed this thing up or I ruined that opportunity and I can't ever go back and make it right. It was the P.L.S. that was with me the day that I "ruined" my cousin's wedding at 12 years of age by flubbing the wedding march on the piano after having only two weeks to learn and memorize it. The P.L.S. still reminds me of that time I didn't tell my grandfather the truth, and concludes, based on my every other failure to disclose any sort of information, that I am a liar and have been since time immemorial. The P.L.S. is constantly carrying on about all the horrible things that will happen whenever I finally mess everything up (as, in the mind of the P.L.S., I am inevitably bound to do), and is the voice I struggle so hard to shut off before I can finally relax enough to sleep at night. According to the P.L.S. I will never be happy because I am going to be single forever because I will always ruin every relationship I ever try to have.
Tonight, though, the P.L.S. was the one who screwed up for a change. I was listening to some of the other guys in the group share their struggles and admit their own fears about recovery. Because confidentiality is so important to the recovery process, I can't repeat what was said, but I can tell you that the P.L.S. spoke up and started criticizing someone else in a way that was completely untrue and uncalled for. Not out loud, mind you, but in my head, I heard the P.L.S. condemn another man for not being hard enough on himself for his failure. The P.L.S. believed that this man should have been sorrier and more self-deprecating for his misbehavior, and that's when I caught on to the lie that the P.L.S. is based on and operates out of. The lie I caught on to is the same thing that I spoke on before: that if you haven't done it perfectly, you've wasted your time; that if you can't get it right right away, you shouldn't bother. And, although it doesn't change my attitude toward sports in the least, it's important to me that this be recognized as a lie.
I'm not entirely sure how it took me 28 years to realize it, but tonight I came to understand that one defective component of a thing DOES NOT make the whole thing worthless. Having a bad spot on a piece of fruit doesn't automatically translate into throwing out the entire piece of fruit (at least, for most people). You cut away the affected portion and eat the rest. So this is where I came up with the 75% rule. The 75% rule says that 75% good is still pretty good. In fact, it's mostly good. If, out of $1,000, I give $100 to charity, save $100, invest $550 and spend the rest on junk I don't need, I did a lot of good with my money. I didn't waste $1,000, and I certainly didn't waste the portion I invested. I wasted what I wasted, which was only a portion of it, but I put the rest to good use. I can make the statement "I handled that money well" without having to make any disclaimers or qualifications or beat myself up for blowing part of it on useless stuff.
I don't know how many of you will be surprised to hear it, but contrary to popular opinion, I am not a perfect person. In the last two weeks, I've downloaded porn three times. It was stupid for me to do it and, in hindsight, I really wish I hadn't, but I also did a lot of other really good things and I would diminish those by not acknowledging that, on the whole, I had a pretty good couple of weeks. It doesn't make pornography any less disgusting and it doesn't excuse my choices or behaviors, but the 75% rule still applies. Honestly, I wish I could live up to the standards that the P.L.S. tries to hold me to, but I can't. Even the Bible says that. As it is, I have to do the best I can with what I have and let grace fill in the gaps.
There's a part of me that worries about whether or not 75% of this is worthwhile material, or if 75% of you even read 75% of the way through it, but I hope this idea helps you in the way I feel like it's helping me. I love you guys dearly (75% of the time, anyway). Goodnight.
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