Are you a superhero?

In talking about expectations of self, as I did in yesterday’s post, one of the things we struggle with is that we expect far too much of ourselves and when it doesn’t go perfectly or as flawlessly as we think it should, we quit. I think it’s a superhero complex. We feel we can do everything, fix everything and everyone and still have time to make dinner. News flash: it isn’t going to happen.

I’m a church musician. One of the things that I’ve found in comparing my two very busy seasons of Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter is that Advent/Christmas is neatly wrapped up in a 4 week period, with two really big, busy days of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. For Lent/Easter, it’s a 6 week period with a really big, busy week of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. Sure, December for everyone else is busy, and that compounds the hectic nature of the season. But I’ve regularly found that by the time Easter Sunday afternoon rolls around, I’m exhausted. It’s a good exhausted, but I’m worn out. And so today is the recovery. Sure, I could dive back in to the organizing and cleaning that I’ve wanted to do and needed to do. I could check things off my list. But today, my goal is to find the kitchen table, do dishes and laundry, find the kitchen counter and do yard work. That’s a good amount to do, but my girls are off of school today, so I wouldn’t be able to be a whirling dervish of work anyway.

So, to the question I posed in the title of this post. Are you a superhero? If you answered “I’m Batman”, nicely done. None of us are. So why do we expect ourselves to be? Give yourself a bit (or a bunch) of grace. Keep plugging away, little by little. Set your goals and your plans for the day to be achievable, but give yourself a reward. Maybe it’s watching an episode or 2 (not 20) of your favorite show. Maybe it’s going for a walk. Whatever it is, give yourself that reward for knocking out things on your to-do list. And keep plugging away. While you’re not a superhero, you’re still very capable of plenty of amazing and awesome things.