{"id":34895,"date":"2021-09-06T19:08:39","date_gmt":"2021-09-07T00:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=34895"},"modified":"2021-09-06T19:08:39","modified_gmt":"2021-09-07T00:08:39","slug":"plans-change-and-people-hurt-us-but-we-often-need-to-start-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=34895","title":{"rendered":"Plans change and people hurt us, but we often need to start over"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have trouble starting over. It doesn\u2019t matter whether it\u2019s a game, a business venture, a relationship or a job. If I find things going poorly, I want to walk away. I feel humiliated. I want to quit.<\/p>\n

Starting over would be an admission of failure, that I hadn\u2019t been good enough. It\u2019s easier to just move on to something new, because I\u2019m uncomfortable with the messiness of fixing something that\u2019s gone wrong.<\/p>\n

When I was a student at the University of Alabama, I had been dating a bright and beautiful nursing student for a few months. Then we had a disagreement about something. It was minor \u2014 and I don\u2019t recall the details \u2014 but we stopped talking. I wanted to continue the relationship, but I wasn\u2019t willing to go to her and say, \u201cHow can we work this out?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t see this woman for several years. I had moved on and married someone else. Then I was in Tuscaloosa one day and ran into her. We talked about what had happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I was wrong,\u201d<\/em> she told me, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t know how to admit that and reconcile things with you. I kept hoping you would call me again and we could start over, but since you didn\u2019t, I figured you didn\u2019t care and I gave up on us.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I learned the truth too late. We had both wanted to reconcile, but neither one of us knew how to open the door and then start over.<\/p>\n

I am a stubborn perfectionist in a very imperfect world. I have trouble tolerating my own imperfections — and I’ve often lost out on things I wanted simply because things weren’t perfect.<\/p>\n

I should know better, of course. There aren\u2019t any perfect solutions. There aren\u2019t any perfect people. Real-life solutions are messy. But I\u2019m someone who has wanted people and plans and situations to be perfect.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s held me back at times from starting something \u2014 or from fixing something \u2014 simply because I couldn\u2019t see a perfect conclusion from where I was starting.<\/p>\n

But the people we love and the people we go through life with aren\u2019t perfect. We will make mistakes we don\u2019t anticipate. They will, too. People will hurt us and we\u2019ll think we\u2019re finished with them. Our plans will have detours and our egos will have bruises.<\/p>\n

We will be hurt and we\u2019ll feel defeated at times. But we have to keep moving ahead anyway. The only alternative is to wait forever for some form of perfection which isn\u2019t humanly possible \u2014 and we\u2019ll only move forward with people who we\u2019ve pretended are perfect and who will then disappoint us.<\/p>\n

This has been a hard lesson for me to learn. Maybe it has been for you, too.<\/p>\n

You can deal with imperfect people. You can deal with failures \u2014 in yourself and others \u2014 but only if you (and they) are willing to learn from inevitable mistakes.<\/p>\n

If you can say, \u201cI screwed up about this and I know I did, but I\u2019d like us to start over,\u201d<\/em> that can change everything. But you have to have the humility to admit what you\u2019ve done wrong — and the other person has to have the grace and humility to accept you again, too.<\/p>\n

And then when one person (or both of you) can admit to mistakes and agree to start over, then comes the hard work of rebuilding trust. That’s difficult.<\/p>\n

So how do you set your ego — and fear of failure — aside long enough to move forward toward what you’re afraid you can’t have anymore? You have to ask yourself, because you probably already know the answers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat could I do today to set things right with someone?\u00a0What could I actually do today to start fixing something I\u2019ve ignored, repairing a broken relationship that I need to fix?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

If you ask yourself these questions, you\u2019ll often be shocked to realize that you already know the answers. You\u2019ve just been afraid to ask. You\u2019ve been afraid to hear the answers — because you\u2019ve been afraid to swallow your pride and start over.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to give up on the things we want and walk away. We’ve all done it. Sometimes we’ve been wrong. Sometimes we’ve messed up. And sometimes it’s been someone else who’s been wrong. Walking away in such cases is easy.<\/p>\n

Starting over can be hard. It can require admitting we’ve messed up. It can require seeing that we were overconfident. It can require reconciling we someone we’ve hurt. It can require us to do things that will make us uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

But if what you wanted matters enough to you, it’s never too late. You can always swallow your pride and ask, \u201cIs it too late to start over?”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have trouble starting over. It doesn\u2019t matter whether it\u2019s a game, a business venture, a relationship or a job. If I find things going poorly, I want to walk away. I feel humiliated. I want to quit. Starting over would be an admission of failure, that I hadn\u2019t been good enough. It\u2019s easier to Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-94P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34895"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34903,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34895\/revisions\/34903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}