Self-Forgiveness

I seem to be so focused lately on the ways I fall short of my own ideals for myself. I want to be more organized, keep things cleaner, eat healthier, exercise more, be a better wife/mother/daughter/sister/friend... There are a lot of things that I want to improve. And I tell myself that it's okay - how boring would life be if I had everything figured out before I even turn 30 (which I will soon enough)? And what kind of unreasonable standard is it really to think I'll ever really be good at everything?

And yet I'm increasingly measuring myself by this impossible standard, and it's effecting the way I see myself and the people around me. How can I work to improve in all these areas while still being comfortable with myself the way I am... a work in progress with a long way to go, yes, but who's also already come a long way in so many different ways. I really need to lighten up.

That's part of what simplicity means to me, I think... simplifying my environment as a part of simplifying myself. I need to learn not to base my identity and my sense of self-worth on impossible standards. But when I feel like there's chaos all around me, and when I feel as though I'm failing in so many different ways, after a while it becomes all I can see.

So again several days have gone by with little progress or even effort, really. I'm just so tired that I've given myself permission (at least mentally) to take care of myself a bit better. As badly as I want to see the progress and have the work done, I just haven't be willing, or maybe even able, to actually do it.

And for now that's okay. Maybe the lesson right now is self-forgiveness and acceptance of my own faults.