Cookies: The Best We Can Be- Today
I’ve been thinking about my work situation. I’m not getting the hours I need and want, while at the same time, I’m not doing what I want. I’m trying to build my own business, as well as write, but those are both difficult and slow going at this time because of reasons.
Recently I asked for an increase in the number of hours I work each day/week. Then yesterday I was imagining talking with my supervisor and our Executive Director about why I need more hours and about my previous work over the years I’ve worked at my employer.
In a previous conversation, it was brought up that I haven’t always gotten tasks done, especially if it’s something I don’t like doing. That is true from one point of view, but a huge mitigating factor is that I’ve had too much on my plate, too many tasks to complete and not enough time. So yes, sometimes things have gone unfinished, and sometimes those are things I haven’t liked doing, but a bigger reason, in my mind, is they were less important, lower priority tasks.
Sometimes I’ve had to submit reports and projects on a deadline. Sometimes those weren’t done to the level I wanted them to be. They were complete, but maybe not polished, and maybe there could be more added to them. They weren’t perfect in my mind, but they were due, and they were good enough. Sometimes “good enough” has to be enough, it’s complete, but not shiny, fancy, or perfect.
Then, it occurred to me: the same thing applies in our own lives, in our day to day, our quest for improvement, and our striving for the best possible life and future, in mortality and after this life. When we get down on ourselves, when we are not satisfied with who we are, or with our situation, often it’s because we haven’t yet reached our ideal. We’re comparing where we are, who we are, to our idea of where we should be, who we should be, if things were perfect. Life isn’t perfect though! We all know this. Despite knowing this, we hold ourselves to what we want or expect we should theoretically be in a perfect world! Why do we do this to ourselves?
No wonder we get frustrated and depressed! No wonder we are our own worst enemies, beating ourselves up mentally and emotionally! When we compare ourselves to a perfect ideal, something fanciful that doesn’t exist, we’re simply setting ourselves up for failure!
It’s ok to realise we haven’t yet reached our potential. We haven’t! Maybe someday we will. Maybe it will be in this life. Maybe it will be after this life. We aren’t there yet. So why should we treat ourselves as if we should be?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my absolute favourite television show of all time. In the final season of the show, Buffy comes to a realisation and discusses where she is at in life and how that pertains to her relationships. She says:
Okay, I’m cookie dough. I’m not done baking. I’m not finished becoming whatever the hell it is I’m gonna turn out to be. I make it through this, and the next thing, and the next thing, and… maybe one day I turn around and realize I’m ready. I’m cookies….. That’ll be then. When I’m done.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer 7:22 “Chosen”
We’re all a bunch of cookies. Some of us are still dough in the mixing bowl, some of us have made it into the oven, and some of us have been burned and need to start over. We’re all at different places in our lives.
Everyone likes cookies cooked differently. Some like big cookies. Some small. Some like cookies a wee bit soft and doughy, some like them crispy. Some like chocolate chip, some peanut butter, and some snickerdoodles. Just because a cookie might not be your ideal, doesn’t mean it isn’t a good cookie. Just because we don’t think it’s perfect doesn’t mean we break it up and throw it out like garbage.
So often though, we beat ourselves up and treat ourselves like trash because we have made mistakes, because we don’t meet some perfect ideal we think we should already have achieved even though we haven’t had enough time in the oven, and are maybe still in the mixing bowl.
One of my current favourite bands is Icon For Hire. I love and appreciate them so much, especially the lead singer/songwriter Ariel. One of their songs, Supposed To Be, contains the following lyrics:
Tell me who I’m supposed to be now
Icon For Hire, Supposed To Be
Make me better
I can’t stay halfway dead forever
I fear now
There’s not much left of me
When you take the sick away
Who am I supposed to be?
Who am I supposed to be?
Recovery time, a condition like mine
What are we talking here?
Getting so close, I can taste the hope
But I still feel the fear
Sometimes we don’t know who we are, or who we are going to become. We may be broken, fearful, numb, or even feel partly dead. We may not know what the timeline will be before we are even back to where we may have been at a strong or high point in our life previously, let alone where we might end up when we’re cookies. Sometimes it can be frightening to know we need to make changes, especially when we don’t know how to make those changes, or where they will lead us. Complacency can set in, and we fear change, even if we aren’t happy with our current circumstances.
What’s important is we try to progress, to move forward, and to improve. Even if we take two steps forward and one back. Even if we take one step and slip and fall. Even if all we can do is turn and face the right direction. As long as over time, we’re making even the smallest amount of progress forward, we’re doing ok. We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to have achieved our full potential. We don’t have to be cookies. All we should be, and all we should expect from ourselves is to be good enough for today. In most cases there is another day to improve, make changes, and be better. Even if there isn’t, all we should expect of others, and of ourselves, is to be good enough for today.
If we fall short, or someone else does, and we weren’t good enough for today, that just means there’s more room for improvement tomorrow. We can adjust the temperature in the oven. We can adjust the recipe. We can be cookies that are good enough. We just have to be willing to see and accept that. I’m good enough, and believe it or not, so are you.
Garrett Leeds is the founder of the Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness Project
