Our friend, Lauren, sent Nicholas "Mario Kart" for his birthday in June. Nicholas loves cars and loves Mario, so it was a perfect gift. The first couple of times he played it, I watched him, and told him that it was okay if he crashed, that he needed to give himself a chance to learn the game. He's really good at it, but still crashes on the more difficult courses. I love to watch him play, because when he crashes, he's so zen about it, "Don't worry, Mommy, it's okay if I crash. I'm learning and I have more lives."
I've talked about it before, and I'm sure it's something I'll always fight with, but I'm really hard on myself. I am really good at supporting others and encouraging and giving other people a break. Not me, though, I'm supposed to be great at everything. I'm supposed to be a great mom, a great wife, a great employee, a great writer, a great child, a great grandkid. I'm supposed to bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan...or something. Something great.
I'm really trying to adopt Nicholas' attitude. I need to learn to do my best and then give myself a break. I need to learn to crash and be okay with it. There are very few times in life where there isn't room to learn, and we almost always have more lives if we crash.
So, how do you give yourself a break? Are you harder on yourself than you are on others?
