Don’t Beat Yourself Up

I’m writing this 80% as a reminder to myself and 20% as a reminder to anyone else.

Things could be so much worse. So you fucked up at work. You’ve fucked up before, and you’ll fuck up again.

Can you learn from it? Absolutely. Are you embarrassed? Do you feel shame? Do you feel like all that therapy work has been thrown out the window because of one mistake? No — but I’d be lying to you if I said my mind didn’t consider it.

Where does that shame come from? I can hear my therapist asking as the question echoes through my brain.

Kindergarten, Ms. Carlson’s class. The sub yelled at me because I didn’t know how to tie my shoe. I remember the sub having really awful hair, so the joke was on her.

Second grade, Ms. Greenman’s class. She chastised me in front of the entire class because I didn’t hand in my homework. We had those desks where the top opened to a cavern of pencils, papers, and markers. I wanted to hide in there. She also had awful hair and wore green a lot; green was NOT her color.

Seventh grade, Mr. Stokes's class. I did a book report on Joe Montana’s greatest Super Bowl comeback. We had to dress up as a character from the book and present it in front of the class. He said it was a “baby book”. He had an incredibly high-pitched voice for a grown man who taught a middle school English class.

So my shame comes from school. It comes from the outcome of work I had done (aside from tying my shoe) that was viewed as shitty by my teachers (bosses).

And that still rears its ugly head today.

I mute email chime notifications because I’ve convinced myself that if they go off, something is wrong — and I’m at fault.

I hide tabs that contain new client emails because if one comes through, I convince myself it’s bad news.

Yet — here I am. Stuck in a perpetual loop of needing to apologize if something is wrong. Going back, working on what I fucked up, until I fuck it all up again.

But hey, don’t worry, Andy. You get to go to bed soon, and you can do it again tomorrow.

Ain’t life grand.

Stop wallowing. It’ll all be okay.

Just look at the Pale Blue Dot photo and remind yourself:
1) You are not your work
2) Things could be much, much worse
3) No one died