nothing steal my joy

Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

- John 16:20-22

---

perfectionism can be malevolent, malignant if you let it fester. It can ruin you if left unchecked.

The thing that haunts me the most these days and probably has been haunting me for years is this insidious perfectionism that tries to justify itself by saying 'you're getting better because of me! you have such high standards, and look where it's got you!' but really, it's killing me - this feeling like I have to live up to this ideal or standard and then worrying about how apparent it is to everyone around me that I fail to measure up to it, my inability to fulfill this self-imposed mandate.

---

I have passed up on so many golden opportunities for fear of looking foolish

---

Whenever you share something you risk rejection. No matter how good it is. Maybe it's time I understood that being foolish and delusional and prone to error and just plain wrong from time to time is part of being human, and that there are worse things than looking foolish and being misunderstood/rejected, for instance, being too much of a coward to share anything real/that matters to me and thus never connecting deeply with anyone.

---

the great thing about forgiveness is that it allows for failure -- expects it, even

---

related: http://www.happletea.com/comic/real-talk/