Abandoning the Ideal

What are you studying?
Are you dating anyone?
What are your plans after school?
And my personal favorite: Are you going on a mission?

I am an eighteen-year-old female sophomore student at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. As such, I suffer through some variant of this interrogation at least bi-weekly. Well-meaning and genuinely interested people want to know what exactly it is that I’m doing with my life.

You know what? So would I.

I’m currently “between majors” and I’m chronically single. My only concrete post-university plan is to weep at my pitiful paychecks. As far as a mission goes, my gripping and definitive answer is always “I’m not sure.”

For some reason, people are never as wowed as they ought to be.

I understand where their confused looks and tentative encouragements are coming from, I really do. It’s hard not to be underwhelmed by someone as irresolute as I am when you compare it to The Ideal.

Let me tell you a little about The Ideal. She is always put-together and on top of things. The Ideal would never dream of procrastinating until three hours before a paper was due. Her hair is always perfect and her wardrobe is somehow both cute and thrifty. The Ideal works out every day and volunteers at the hospital every week. She’s spunky and fun, she’s spiritual and intelligent. She’s gorgeous and charming and always knows exactly what to say. She maintains a 4.0 GPA while holding a steady job and actively fulfilling her Church callings.

The Ideal is studying something intelligent and practical. The Ideal is never dateless. Ever since last October, the Ideal serves an 18-month mission for the LDS Church. The Ideal knows exactly what she wants to do with the rest of her life.

The Ideal is also a blatant lie.

(I’m not bitter. I understand why it might sound that way, but I’m really not.)

The Ideal is a captivating fantasy. Perceived perfection gives us something to strive for as we wallow in self-pity. “Tomorrow,” we say as we surf through auto-scrolling Pinterest boards, “Tomorrow I’ll go to the gym. Tomorrow I’ll clean my house. Tomorrow I’ll learn to bake bread and write the perfect Relief Society lesson and master the quadruple-French-fishtail-upside-down-bun-braid.” But that’s exactly the problem with The Ideal – she’s a creature of the elusive tomorrow. She has an aptitude for excellence that, when compared to our unmade beds or burnt macaroni, can overwhelm even the most dedicated of her devotees.

And as The Ideal lives in the tomorrow, we flounder through today. Because no one can master everything in a day or even a week, no matter what the self-help books tell us, and we realize that we will never, ever become The Ideal that we think we need to be. But instead of seeing that and realizing that maybe it’s time for a paradigm shift, we just wallow some more. If we can’t be perfect tomorrow, what’s the point in trying today?

Inevitably, we try to escape our feelings of painful inferiority. We thrust the burden of The Ideal onto someone else’s shoulders, and then attempt to find some sort of security in the fact that no one else can quite grasp perfection either. We compare, we scoff, we scorn, we mock, we whisper, we gossip, we question – all a desperate plea for an affirmation that we’re doing something, anything, right.

Oh, so you’re not going on a mission?

You don’t have a boyfriend?

You’re still undeclared?

It’s an “at least I’m not as bad as she is” mentality, and it needs to stop. Comparison will never lead to confidence. Any temporary satisfaction you get because your snickerdoodles are so much softer than your neighbor’s will be crushed when you meet someone whose kitchen is always miraculously clean. And, I promise, any delight they get from that will wither away when they see that their visiting teacher’s kids are really well behaved during the primary program. And their visiting teacher probably really resents the fact that she can never get a batch of snickerdoodles to turn out quite right.

Let’s just get it out in the open right now – you will never be “as good” as anyone else. That’s not supposed to be the worst pep talk ever, it’s just a truth. How could you possibly be “as good” as someone when your basis for determining goodness is an impossible standard? I’m going to tell you a secret right now: you’re not supposed to be the same as anyone else! Can you imagine how boring that would be? I couldn’t stand living in a world full of ME’s, and I think I’m pretty fabulous. Whether you’ve known what to major in since you were twelve years old or you’ve changed your mind five times in the last year, whether or not you’re going on a mission, whether or not you’ve mastered the art of snickerdoodle baking – you bring something to this world that no one else can quite match, that no one else is supposed to match.

We need to embrace our individuality and leave The Ideal far behind. Stop bashing people, whether vocally or within your own mind, because they are different from what you imagine to be correct, and stop resenting people because you think they’ve accomplished something better than you.

You’re going on a mission? Fantastic!

You’re in your seventh year of undergrad? Awesome!

In your spare time you make quilts for poor children? That’s amazing!

Your true passion is underwater basket weaving? I admire your unique brand of creativity!

Let go of judgment, both of yourself and of those around you, and figure out what it is that you have to offer to the world. Not The Ideal, not the woman across the street with the really well-groomed lawn, but you. Be the absolute best that you can be.

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” 

The ever - wise Dr. Seuss