I'm Still Not Perfect

What the fuck is wrong with you? You know who you are. You turned onto University Avenue this morning and I had to slam on my brakes. Then you proceeded cautiously at roughly 20mph, no more, no less. You probably saw me in your rear-view mirror throwing my arms up in the air and gesturing to you in a manner suggesting that you should fournicate with yourself. If you had the ability to read lips, you might have been upset for a good portion of the rest of your day because I had some ideas of what you could do with your ass.

Didn't you all get the memo that I'm the most important driver on the roads? Surely I tell people through my body language and aggressive driving tactics. And did you know that it is my sole responsibility to hold you to the highest standards of what I think driving laws are? It's a tough job, but I think I do it well.

Here's an example of how I teach others the rules of the road. Let's say you see an opening in traffic so you take a right and I happen to be behind you at whatever distance. What you didn't know is that I saw you turning and I sped up so I would have an opportunity to slam on my brakes to teach you a lesson. Now that's pretty nice of me. Had I been the one turning, and a car came up too quickly behind me, I would have proceeded at roughly 20mph to teach them a lesson about speeding.

Does this all sound a little fucked up? Great! You're paying attention. This is an example of what I've been fighting since childhood: Perfectionism, which is a controlling behavior. I wrote a paper on the subject in treatment in prison, and I've come a long way. But I'm still not perfect.

Perfectionism isn’t exactly what you might think it is. You see, I hold myself to the highest standards when it comes to, well, anything. And when those standards aren’t met, I blame it on something or somebody else. Here’s the thing, I also hold you to the highest standards. I need you to do everything perfectly, or I’m going to let you know about it. Not through direct communication, but again with body language like sighing or visible frustration.

This is just one of the many things that has come up while writing out my fourth step. I’m taking my personal inventory, something I did in a different fashion in prison, but there appears to be some leftovers. I’m okay with it though. Already I’ve been making changes mentally in my thought process, and I’ve been able to let go of a lot of baggage and anger. I still have two weeks left of this fourth step workshop I’ve been attending, and this week we are going to go over our sex inventory, something about which I’m a little nervous because I haven’t thought about it for years. Quite candidly, I’m not even sure what the process is, or what I will have to spell out, but I will know tonight.

I drove home from work today without even so much as thinking a bad thought about a fellow motorist. I didn’t even look in my rear-view to make sure the guy turning in behind me used his blinker and changed lanes appropriately. Traffic was bad, but I just listened to the radio, and that seemed to distract my mind for long enough to get home.

One thing I am constantly working on is the thoughts that go through my head. I need them to be more positive, and they are becoming that way, but I still find myself saying bad things in my head about people like my boss, and the poor man at the Arby’s that didn’t seem very bright. None of those thoughts made this world a better place.  From now on, I will focus on what I can do to help others. I will be less selfish and self-centered. And we will see how that goes for a while.