So I’m about sixty percent of the way through my internship and if I have learned anything, it is that life definitely does not have a pause button. Although there are definitely perks of a job with a 9am-6pm regular work week, I am most definitely learning that life/work balance does not come any more naturally now than it did in school. Finding balance between the two is different now though. I am finding it much harder to choose responsibility/work over life/relationships than it was to choose school over life.
The arguments for choosing work are so much less convincing than the ones that I had for choosing school. School was investment in my future, work is just depressing because it’s looking more and more like I’ll be unemployed on June 1 when my internship ends. It’s hard to choose to commit to something when it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.
Now, some of you will read this and judge me, I can probably some who will, but I am going to put this out there anyway.
I realize I am telling you nothing new. This all stuff you probably already know and I am just a little behind the learning curve. That’s ok, if my recent therapy sessions are any clue, I am apparently behind the curve on a lot of other basic, life-lessons too. Like creating my own standards for success -I’m pretty sure I’ve just been following the world’s general prescription of “do this to be successful, now do this, now go get a degree, now make good grades, now volunteer, now eat well and exercise, now get your professor/boss/parent/friend/pastor/instructor’s approval.” I am not sure how I avoided ever making my own definition of what deserves approval and what doesn’t, but it probably has something to do with my sometimes-insane perfectionism.
I feel like my entire life has been spent in an attempt to reach someone else’s definition of perfection:
Singing – I was told I could sing well, so I took lessons for years, following (almost) all of my voice coach’s instructions as if they were gold, whether or not they were related to singing
Exercise/Food – As I began to take nutrition and physical education classes in middle and high school, I began to idolize the rules those classes (and any further reading that seemed like an authority) set out -eating the right foods, exercising the proper amount and at the right times, avoiding certain foods or activities… as demonstrated by the subsequently needed therapy, that worked out real well for me…
Even therapy -To an extent, therapy has been about someone else’s standards -following the doctor’s orders because I want to be the best and I don’t want to lose this battle, not necessarily because I want to be free. My language concerning those orders betrays me -“oh, Dr. so-and-so will be disappointed when they hear about it, or “Dr. Such-and-Such will be really happy to hear about this.”
Grades are an easy one to understand, and I think religion is a fairly direct connection also.
This internship is one of the first things where there has been no set standard that I can look to for how to judge success and there is no superior judging me. Now that I am the only intern in the office, there isn’t even someone to whom I can compare and thus judge my performance.
So now I get to start working on what I suspect most of humanity has been working on for nearly all of their existence: how to set their own standards and decide what is good, bad, neutral, sufficient, what is unacceptable.
I mean, I have been working on that for a while now, slowly but surely. Little things, like figuring out whether I like potato chips or chocolate chip cookies better, and whether I am full after a full meal or if I need to eat two because I am particularly hungry that day. Even choosing to not change the time of my standing doctor’s appointment on Thursday afternoons was a choice that brought me closer to finding my own definitions of success/acceptability (because I like it at that time and I am no longer going to worry about whether anyone in my office sees it as bad that I leave early once week.)
Just because I trust someone and value their opinion does not mean I want their opinion to affect my choices. Nor does it mean I should not consider their opinion. Balance. I am seeking balance. Pretty sure that the word “balance” is competing with “compassion” as my favorite word in the English language now.
What kind of standards have you held tightly, without even knowing if they were your own?
Red Cabbage Salad in a whole wheat tortilla for lunch.
Red Cabbage Salad
Serves 4-6
3 cups shredded red cabbage
1/2 red onion, diced
2 granny smith apples, cored and diced
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup craisins
1 large raw beet, finely chopped or grated
1 lb chicken breasts, cooked/boiled and diced
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
Toss together all ingredients, except lemon and olive oil, in a large bowl.
In a small bowl, whisk together lemon and olive oil, then pour over and toss with ingredients in large bowl.
Enjoy in a wrap or simply as a salad.
Sweet Spatulas 