As I approach 68 (this summer has somewhat become a “summer of introspection”)… I’ve realized something that feels like a turning point. For years, I’ve carried the weight of expectations, most of them my own. The hope to achieve, to excel, to measure up. Hope has always mattered deeply to me, but I’ve also seen how it can quietly turn into pressure when the bar is set too high.
So now I’m not just abandoning perfectionism (that’s fairly easy), I’m setting a new kind of expectation for myself… to not worry about being good at something, OR anything. To make “just doing it” the goal in and of itself. For that to become the practice, the intention, and the achievement. Because at this stage of life, it’s not about “proving myself”…for me it needs to be about “freeing myself.”
This doesn’t mean giving up on growth. It means shifting the focus from results to presence, from outcomes to participation… even if that “participation” is sitting on my dock BY MYSELF drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, or having a cocktail. Writing, learning, connecting, playing, even failing, not as measures of skill, but as experiences worth having for their own sake. My new expectation, my new “hope” and goal, is to live more fully by stepping into action without the weight of my own judgment.
In a way, that’s the highest bar I can set… to keep showing up, without hesitation, without fear, without the old burden of “being good enough for me,” or for others. That’s not just a release… it’s the truest kind of freedom, and the Return on Relationship I owe myself.