Are We There Yet

We're not there yet. 

Are we ever? 

I don't know who it was who first said that life was a journey, not a destination, but it's clearly another example of how the truth is a bumper sticker that makes you say, "I knew that." 

I was recently reminded by someone I know that there's nothing magical about January 1st. Whatever was happening December 31st and before will still need to be dealt with when the new year begins (and continues); work and my on-going issues with a certain co-worker, the leaky faucet in the bathroom, my neurotic inner child's paralyzing feelings of inadequacy. Whatever you were in denial about at the end of one calendar year will still require your on-going denial in the next. 

I don't know if it would make any difference but shouldn't the calendar actually align with the circadian rhythm of the planet itself? Shouldn't the calendar be recalibrated to set January 1 to fall on the Winter Solstice? 

You got me. I was only using the Winter Solstice and the arbitrary nature of the calendar we use as a distraction, rather than confront and deal with work and my on-going issues with a certain co-worker, the leaky faucet in the bathroom, or my neurotic inner child's paralyzing feelings of inadequacy.

Not to belabor the point, but the Gregorian Calendar is what happens when you let non-scientists drive public policy. Okay, there weren't a lot of astrophysicists working in Italy at the time (fair point), but even the Druids had figured out the equinox and the solstice. Of course, they weren't Christians so the Druids' "data" was discounted as "not cool with Jesus" (actual translation from the Latin Vulgate). 

But I digress.

(Again.)

Am I doing the best I can when it comes to dealing with work and my on-going issues with a certain co-worker, the leaky faucet in the bathroom, or my neurotic inner child's paralyzing feelings of inadequacy? "The best I can" is one of those phrases that seems to be always retrospectively true. (I didn't say "all I can," after all.) Given my neurotic inner child's paralyzing feelings of inadequacy, what were you expecting for my "best," anyway? 

How am I supposed to meet these unrealistic expectations? 

What kind of monster are you?

(It's not you; that was my inner child yelling at me.)

Oddly, it strikes me that it's possible to do the best you can and the least you can all at the same time. That seems intuitively wrong, or rather, impossible (no judging!) and yet sometimes the best we can do is nothing, which is, of course, always the least we can do. 

Yes, I'm looking at you, leaky bathroom faucet. 

Maybe I'll shut off the water to that faucet so it doesn't leak. (You know; until I can fix it.) That would be more than nothing and it's definitely the best I could do today. 

It also seems like something I should've thought of a long time ago. Something that belongs on a bumper sticker of truth.

Maybe the thought of shutting off the water felt like giving up. Denial. The leaky faucet was a constant, torturous, shaming, drip-drip-drip reminder that it needed to be fixed. Shutting off the water would have allowed me to ignore and eventually forget the faucet was leaking. 

Why didn't I think of this sooner? (My neurotic inner child asked through the clenched jaws of his nearly paralyzing feelings of inadequacy.)

One problem fixed!

Sort of. 

But that's okay. 

We're not there yet.

Are we ever?