Being human OR rabbits and elephants

Am I the only one who looks for comments constantly as reinforcement? I'd like to think that I really don't need praise, but I think I do desire recognition, I am human after all. Ultimately, I think that is what this rambling post is going to be about. I "live in my head" all day long, and this blog seems to be the best way to get most of what is in my head out. In other words, it is a good way to give my mind some peace. My original blog thoughts for today involved moms being so hard on ourselves. I often speak of a friend who used to say she wished she did X like this person, Y like that person, and Z like another person. The problem is those were three different people and she was taking all of their best qualities and comparing them to her own perceived shortcomings. I think we all do that. Someone will always have a cleaner house, smarter more polite kids, etc... We need to be gentler on ourselves. Another friend has put it this way "we are comparing our insides to someone else's outsides". We know our own shortcomings, we see are own yucky insides (envy, worry, frustration), we may show them to those closest to us, but basically we try to show our "best" to the world. When we see each other's good, a common reaction is "I wish I were more like they are". My hope is that someone who reads this (IF anyone reads this) will be touched by it and remember to go easy on themself. Personally, I am usually pretty easy on others. I try to be, anyway. I often say things like "the fact that, as a mother, you are concerned about this, or questioning that, means that you are doing a good job". I say it to others, but I don't often listen to myself. Last night after I ranted to Jonathan about his needing to make more time to read, Mike reminded me that overall Jonathan is turning out pretty good. My response was, "I'm not trying to raise average children". Generally speaking I don't think anyone sets out to raise average children, but I've continued to think about that all day. I often say to my kids things like "I'm not putting all of this effort into homeschooling you for you to.....blah blah blah" {I'm sharing some of my yucky insides with you now}. The thing is, I know this kind of thing is counterproductive, but I'm human so I do it anyway. Then I beat myself up over it because being human is no excuse. [please tell me I'm not the only one who does this kind of thing]

Anyway, what is my point? Well I don't really know, but weeks ago I said I was going to have more posts on the homeschool convention, so now I will attempt to pull some of that into this and wrap it all together. Jeff Myers is one of my all time favorite convention speakers. He is president of Passing the Baton International. It is a ministry that trains mentors to "pass the baton" to the next generation. The baton being leadership, faith, communication skills, etc...etc... Because I went to every session he spoke at at the convention, I was able to get on his email list. I received an email from him today. In it he told this story {the story actually comes from someone else, you may have heard it, but I never have}...It goes like this...say you have two elephants and you put them in your garage. Say one is male and one is female. After some time (a year or two) you open the garage door and what do you find? Now you might have three elephants...a mom, a dad, and a baby. On the other hand what if in that same garage you instead put two rabbits, a male and a female. In a year or two you'll not only have 3 rabbits, you may in fact have hundreds of rabbits. The point is this, so often people are "all or nothing people". "If I can't do it perfectly, I'd rather not do it at all". We need to recognize our own baby steps. Instead of looking for "elephant" experiences we need to embrace the opportunities for smaller "rabbit" experiences. We are all challenged with something (or many things) it may be health, finances, difficulties with children, etc...etc... Whatever your issue is right now, praise yourself for the "rabbit" steps you are making.