Once upon a time, little four year old Marley wrapped her five little fingers around a red crayon. This was her field. Crafting, coloring, creating. No one needed to ask her why, because she wouldn't have known the answer anyway. The reason wasn't important. Reason had nothing to do with anything. It was the way her soul lit up from the inside out when she was doing it. She never questioned it. A gift youth brings.
With great gusto Marley gave the ladybug its colorful red coat. During this principal task the world around her sort of ceased to be there. It was just her and the ladybug. Until it wasn't. Her teacher, who had been hovering around the classroom as several children colored in their ladybugs, stopped by Marley's desk and looked at the work she had done.
Marley looked up from her tiny desk at the towering teacher.
"Hm.." she started, noting the way the red travelled ever so slightly beyond the bounds of the black outlined ladybug on the page, "I expected better from you. You've colored outside the lines. That's very messy. Not very like you, Marley."
It was in this moment, the teacher had bestowed the most valuable lesson a little four year old could ever learn.
Anything less than perfection is not good enough.
Great waves of shame threatened to drown little Marley. She had performed below par. It was true, she usually excelled at crafts projects. Her blue eyes fixated on the tiny bit of red that had escaped the confines of the ladybug's wings. She could feel her cheeks warm up. This was not a wonderful feeling. People expected better from her. Nothing short of the highest standard would do.
Everything before and after this moment was left forgotten. Her soul had frozen this moment in time. Preserved in a glass orb for her to hold on to for years to come. It had decided that that would be a most beneficial thing to do. You see, the soul had taken note of this extreme internal mortification that had briefly coursed through the body and felt that it should protect Marley from ever having to experience that again. The soul would prevent it. The soul would protect Marley.
In order to receive praise and avoid the kind of criticism that would inevitably be followed by more of this uneasy feeling she just experienced, Marley would have to color inside the lines with meticulous precision. She would have to take great care in all tasks from now on. Not just in school, but in life.
Slowly, but surely as the years added inches to her height, Marley had adopted the teacher's expectations as her own.
In order to be worthy of the image people apparently had of her, she had to be perfect. When people around her were pleased with her, she was safe from that crippling feeling of not having met their expectations.
And yet, the more she strived for perfection the unhappier she became. Never reaching that level of excellence she had set for herself made her feel less than. As if she was perpetually lacking. In skill, and in knowledge. Not good enough. Not worthy.
What Marley hadn't realised, and wouldn't for a very long time to come, was that she was already quite perfect. Exactly as she was, and always would be.
She was worthy.
Comments