Learning To Be Enough

  Jayne has been struggling with self-esteem issues lately. She is feeling like she is not quite smart enough, talented enough, just NOT enough.  I suppose, in a way, I am too, as fifty gets closer and closer.  I think our society sets us up for this from the time we are little. First we are put into reading groups based on our abilities (which we often see as a lack of ability when we are not in the highest group), and don't even get me started on what rejection from a sports tryout can do. We base our self-worth on our test scores and come away feeling “less than” when someone else does better than us, and there's always going to be someone better, faster, or smarter.  I don't mean to pound my chest here, but living with an impressionable teen is heartbreaking at times. Why doesn't our society support us for being exactly who we are? I beleive that if you are doing the best you can that that should be enough. As I tell Jayne when she has tried her hardest, yet doesn't quite make it, that she is perfect just like she is, which normally gets me an eye roll, but I mean it.  Even though we are bombarbed by the message that we are not quite enough, I want to believe that I am enough just like I am. Magazines tell us how to be skinnier, the television tells us how to cover up our flaws with the right make-up, how to get six pack abs with the right machine, or a plethora of other ways we can improve ourselves as though we are not quite good enough.  Why not learn early to love ourselves, flaws and all, and be happy anyway?

    I recently read an article about an Indie movie filmed in Amsterdam.  It follows the lives of two twin sisters who just happen to be 69 year old prostitutes...talk about acceptance of yourself. I'm not advocating prostitution, but they are adults and it is legal in their country. So hey, live and let live.  My point is not to debate prostitution here, my point is, wouldn't it be lovely to be so comfortable in your own skin that you could get naked at 69 with a stranger and feel ok?   I have a hard time just looking in the mirror somedays as my body ages, let alone allowing someone else in the room. Yet, the concept of this kind of self-acceptance would be a gift to any one of us. What a wonderful thing to teach our children, that they are enough just as they are, physically, mentally, and spiritually.  So whether they make the team or not, whether they get the part in the play or not, whether they go to college or not, or whether they want to go to tech school and be a mechanic, to instill in them to follow their passions, their dreams, without any stigma attached to their choices is the ultimate state of self-acceptance.  I want Jayne to do what she wants to do because she loves it and to know that she is enough just as she is. Ultimately, don't we all want to know we are enough just as we are?