an idealist in the real world
virtue over victory
I remember setting New Year’s resolutions as a child. Things like, “wake up at 5:30 every morning1” and “write in my journal every day”. I think I was eight or nine. Even at a young age I somehow internalized and romanticized the idea of an ideal morning routine. I longed for peace, tranquility, structure, order — something to assure me that I was doing it right. What “it” was? I couldn’t have told you. Who defined “right”? Again, I couldn’t say, but it was probably a smattering of sources, dominated by the check list evangelicalism of the 90’s and enforced by my own idealistic bent.
I’m an idealist to the core. I believe there is a right way to do things and a wrong way, and I want to be right. Life, however, is funny. God in all his wisdom has frequently seen fit to challenge my fixed ideas of the right way to do things, and so with age, children, many moves and many transitions, I keep being sifted. I’m learning — slowly, repetitively, painfully — which things matter, and which don’…