That's just the way I am

I have a page from a 1994 "quote a day" calendar on my bulletin board. The unattributed quote reads, "Life in the fast lane is difficult for turtles."

What this quote says to me is that we should accept ourselves the way we are and not try to be something we're not. If "life in the fast lane" doesn't suit us, and I think we know whether it does or not, then we shouldn't pretend that we really want to be there. I don't necessarily think that I'm a turtle, but I'm pretty sure I'm not a hare. I spent a few years climbing the corporate ranks; I was a mid-level manager at a fairly sizable corporation when my job was eliminated. During the time that I was looking for a new job, I tried to analyze my feelings about work and decide what I wanted to do, having been given a chance to make a fresh start. I decided that I didn't want to supervise people, that I wanted to be responsible only for my own actions. Now I can go to work at 8:00 in the morning, do my job, and then lay it down and go home at 5:00.

I finally realized that my job is just my job. It isn't my life or my real work, and it isn't "me." It's what I do to make the money that makes my life possible. There's a quote that I love that I found years ago, and I no longer know the source, for which I apologize:

I am not my body; I am not my work or my role; I am not my gender; I am not my nationality; I am not a human being. . . I am a spiritual being having a human experience.

I didn't mean for this essay to be about my job; I meant it to be about being true to yourself--not trying to make yourself over into what someone else wants you to be, or what you think you should be.

In a great little book called Finding Joy, psychologist Charlotte Davis Kasl suggests spending a day saying, "That's just the way I am." Not as an excuse or justification for behavior that is harmful to you or to someone else, but as a way of accepting yourself, mistakes and all. "I don't keep the house as clean as I should, but that's just the way I am." "I get scared and don't stand up for myself. That's just the way I am."

That's not to say that things couldn't change in the future, but this is where I am now, at this moment. And, yes, it does bring to mind that Saturday Night Live character--"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!" But you know, sometimes we need a reminder like that. While always striving to be better, we occasionally need to stop and say, "I'm okay just the way I am, right now."