My Toughest Critic

There is one person in my life who is harder on me about everything I do than anyone else. There is one person who is adept at pushing my buttons and making me as crazy as can be.

They drive me to drink and distraction. They are the reason my hair is falling out and my stomach aches. At times they have made me scream in frustration. I can’t count the number of times that I have threatened to just walk out and end my relationship with them, but as much as I want to the reality is that this is simply impossible.

And the reason that I am unable to do this is because my toughest critic is…..me.

That is the truth. I am harder on myself than anyone. I read my blog and time and time again I cringe at what I read because I think that the topic is silly, the words are poorly selected and I wonder why I don’t just scrap the whole thing

In my head I see myself as I was at 20. I have washboard abs, my body is chiseled from hours of working out and I still find time to read. I like that image and then I look at what 16 years of life has done and I see the same intensity in my eyes, broad shoulders, dark hair and a stomach that demonstrates a love for food. It is not horrible, but it is not what it could be.

So I flex and I see those abs reappear and I know that the Michelin Man is occupying my body and that if I took the time and made the effort I could evict him, but I don’t because I apparently don’t care. I care enough to be irritated, but not enough to change.

I look at the projects around my house and I see that I have managed to finish many of them but then I think about how hard my father worked and I feel like his work ethic exceeds my own by light years.

The list goes on and on. There are so many things that I could and can improve and I wonder how many I actually will. So I take a deep breath and consider what I have and where I am at and I have to admit that things are really pretty good, but sometimes I just have trouble accepting it.

And you know that in my reality the hardest person to please is myself. So my goal in the coming year is to try to relearn how to ease off on myself and to maintain some perspective.

I’d write more but it is far too late and I need to sleep now. Lailah tov from LA.