Aim Low, Shoot High

I used to love the first day of school after Christmas break. The cool, crisp winter days coupled with residual happiness from the holidays to inflate my optimism about the new year. I'd meticulously set out an outfit of new clothes and lie in bed, resisting sleep with all the excited anticipation of being dealt a new hand of good cards after having lost big with the previous one.

This time things would be different. This year, I'd transcend my inborn awkwardness with a previously untapped sense of savoir-faire. I'd walk through the hallways with new-found swagger, overcoming my oversized nose, ears, and mouth with unassailable cool. This year, I'd come out on top. Eventually I'd fall asleep, drifting away on a sea of baseless optimism and elevated expectation, only to soon run aground on the grim shores of the uncaring, unfeeling reality of the universe.

Today marks the beginning of my fourteenth semester as a college instructor. In a few days, I'll also turn 35. I'm fast approaching the midpoint of average life expectancy for an American male and I'm acutely aware of the fact that my most elastic and energetic days are probably behind me. Consequently, I've long since abandoned that heedless hopefulness that lulled me to the sleep of bright, expectant dreamers.

First days after Christmas break are now exercises in anxiety. I'll meet approximately160 new faces whose names I need to memorize for my classroom ethos. I'll go through the next round of conversations in which I explain how little I accomplished over the break and how delightful it was to do nothing at all. Because of my body's psychosomatic peculiarity, I'll perspire during the first few class sessions like I'm Miss Teen South Carolina on an episode of Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

The new beginnings are now anxious affairs because I spend too much time thinking about how I can do better, be more organized, and achieve more than I did during the last go-round. Like most people, I wrap up this anxiety in a narrative of relentless self-improvement. The real truth has nothing to do with Jay Gatsby-eqsue plans for personal improvement. In all honesty, it's the accumulating weight of past disappointments that pushes me to strain harder against failure.

The problem isn't that I'm so deeply flawed that I can't meet the relatively unimpressive expectations I might set for myself. We're all guilty of feeling that way about ourselves from time to time. There's something to be said for having the appropriate discipline, but that rhetoric is as guilty of discouraging as many people as it motivates. The real problem lies in the foolishness of thinking that I can attain a perfect outcome or that I can even get close to perfection. I can't. You can't. None of us can. 

The horrifying reality is that in either possible outcome, you're still going to asphyxiate and die. 

Take that, adorable little aphorism.

Year after year, the optimism of early January failed to translate into reality. Year after year, the disappointments stung a little more. I'd resolve to lose weight and fail to do so because of a lack of discipline or an abundance of delicious warm donuts. I'd make a resolution to be more organized and marvel at a new system of categorizing daily activities, only to forget to transcribe what was in my head onto the planner page. The inevitable let down consequently felt even more disappointing because I was likely on the third, fourth, or fifteenth attempt at achieving perfection.

This year, I want to stop cloud jumping. I want to set realistic, attainable goals that don't require anything approximating perfection. I don't want to inherit a new batch of stress from failing to succeed in running down perfection. I don't want to constantly beat myself up because I didn't put forth my best effort on a particular day.

I don't want to be afraid that I'm falling short of an ideal I could never have attained. I'm not even going to trick myself by aiming just below perfection and hoping that I'm satisfied with that result. Knowing you came close and fell short always feels worse than anyone admits.

I want to accumulate an entire bookshelf full of participation awards and be thrilled to have them. I don't want to make a goal to be a consummate professional at all times. I'm doomed to fall short of that on a weekly basis. Instead, I aim to dress a bit nicer, grade a bit more efficiently, and be more articulate than clever in my speech. I don't want to be the idealized wise and inspiring father. I'm instead aspiring to raise my voice less often and ignore a few more eye-rolls. I'm going slowly come to grips with the fact that my daughters are not only no longer my little girls, but that they also no longer want to be little girls at all.

You might say that I'm surrendering to mediocrity. You might think to yourself that I'm moving goalposts so that I can feel better about my feeble sense of personal discipline. You might be right.

I'm going to aim low and shoot high. I'm not going to to obsess about how I've fallen short of my goals. I'm going to set reasonable, attainable goals, maintain a reasonable level of effort, and enjoy knowing that everything above and beyond meeting my goal is a extra reward. I'm going to strive less and savor more. This year, I'm not going to wallow in the disappointment of falling short. I'm going to revel in the satisfaction of no longer fearing perfection.