The Desire To Succeed

I believe, deep down, we all have a deep desire to succeed and to base our worth on our success. For me, I want to succeed in absolutely everything. Often times, I catch myself thinking that if I am not the best at everything, then I am a failure at life. I want to be the best writer, the best artist, the best photographer, the best baker, the best at every single thing I do in life. And I’m not. At all. I’m probably the worst at all of those things. I get so frustrated and so mad at myself when things aren’t perfect. Take for example, my writing. I love writing stories and I have been doing it since I was 7 or 8 years old. My stories have, of course, gotten so much better than they were when I started. But they aren’t good enough yet. (I doubt that they will ever be good enough.) On my computer, I have a folder named “Failed Stories”. It has, currently, over 30 stories (almost 900 pages total *sobs*). All of those stories started out great. I was so excited to work on them and to create a whole new world. But somewhere along the line, I gave up. Most of the time, I stopped writing because they were not factual enough. (Let it be known, I am a stickler for things that I do being factual.) I don’t know enough about the subject on which I am writing, so I give up because it isn’t good enough, because I don’t know enough. Pretty much everything in my life is like that. I say the wrong things, do the wrong things and think the wrong things. And then I get so mad at myself for not getting to the goal that I set. Deep down inside, I want to be as good as an adult at everything. I’m only 15, but I expect myself to do what a professional adult would do. And WHEN I can’t, I blame myself for being so inadequate and so stupid.

Example time:

Say I really wanted to write a great, long story. It starts out great and I work on it for a very long time. But then it peters out. So I sit down and give myself a very long talk about how I should have done better and how I am weak because I didn’t meet my goal and a bunch of other stuff that I will forgo putting down in writing. Basically, it boils down to four words: I’m not good enough. And in my own eyes, I’m NEVER going to be good enough. I will always be trying harder and running faster, hoping that one day I’ll be able to see myself as worthy of love because of what I’ve accomplished. (You people who are living with me, read this and then forget it all, please.)

But that is not right. The truth is that we are loved and worthy of love, not for what we’ve done or what we’ve accomplished, but because God says that we are loved. And if he says that, shouldn’t we believe him? (Easier said than done, believe me.) He made us and he knows ALL of our flaws and weaknesses, and he loves us. That love is never going to run out or die. Nothing we can do will change that. Does that mean we shouldn’t try to succeed in things? NO! It is good to try our best and work hard. But we shouldn’t believe that we can earn love by being the best at things. (Ouch) We are already loved by Jesus! Our worth is not based on our actions, but is based on who we are in Jesus. Please never forget that! YOU ARE SO LOVED AND SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!

~Hattush