You Don't Have to Be Good

You can't always be good.  There are days when you are just going to not be good. Moments in your lives will find you eating the wrong foods, getting mad at people, swearing, or being ugly to the world. You are going to have a day now and then when you won't want to go to the family party; you won't want to like your husband; you want to say that mean thing you've been holding back on. There will be a day when you steel the parking place from the old lady, or slide in front of the mother with 3 whining toddlers in the grocery store.  You will lose all control and declare you will never do another dish, or wash anyone else's clothes as long as you live. You won't feel like being kind and you may make small children cry. You sometimes can't be good.  You know what?  You don't have to be good.

You have my permission to NOT be good ALL the time.  I mean, you can't make a habit of this, but once in a great while, cut yourself some slack.  We do the best we can 99.9% of the time, do we not?  What if just once in a great while you just allowed the slip up?  Go one step further and don't consider it a slip up, but a part of life.  Because, simply, it is.  Don't punish yourself forever for doing a 'not so nice' thing.  If you have to apologize or make it right somehow, do so when you get the first opportunity.  Then just chalk it up to 'one of those things' that happened on 'one of those days.'

What I am trying to say to you is, 'let go of the ideal,' a little.  I don't mean drop your whole weight loss battle or give up your college studies.  But maybe see yourself with some kinder eyes and allow yourself the same margin of error you would allow another.  Okay, so you told your coworker
her shoes were frumpy.  It slipped out when you were joking around!  You said you were sorry.  You called yourself a heel. Now, just move on and forget it.  You can't expect to be good at all times on every occasion.

Why?  Well, because you are a human.  YUP.  Isn't it GRAND?  Humans fail.  They mess up.  They over-drive the road conditions (thank my husband for that one.....grrrrr....apparently that is why I went off the road! :))  Expect this.  Don't try to screw up.  Don't encourage it in others.  But, expect it if it happens.  Then, forgive and forget.

You don't have to be good.

Take Good Care Today.

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes, 

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting  

over and over announcing your place 

in the family of things.