Being bad at stuff

I've been practicing being really bad at stuff lately -- not all stuff, mind you, but some stuff. What stuff? Stuff that I used to invent arbitrary measures of success for, most of which were trivial, insignificant, and/or weird; and stuff that I used to berate myself for not being perfect at, when I actually-really-truly didn't give a shit about the stuff in question to begin with! There are some things, even lots of things, that we all need to give fewer shits about.

You'll notice on my Twitter profile, here, that I declare something about taking myself too seriously, which is entirely true. I've written about that on this blog, in fact. Anyway, I get really anal about my communication sometimes, to a ridiculous extent. More often than not, it just gets in the way of me being who I am, because neurotic self-editing tends to do that, you know? So I've been practicing letting myself be a crappy conversationalist with strangers. That's not to say I'm being a prick to anyone -- no. But whereas I used to secretly assume such a ridiculous burden of responsibility in most conversations, I'm letting myself just kind of not really care how it goes; i.e., I have either no or low expectations of myself and the conversation's outcome.

Honestly, it's been really fun. Because who cares if I say something the other person doesn't understand? Not my responsibility. Who cares if my syntax isn't great? I'm just letting myself be me for a change, and it's like a weight is gone.

Maybe take a minute today and think about some of the unreasonable expectations you have of yourself. And then maybe go ahead and let yourself be bad at it. "Let yourself suck," I like to say. Give fewer shits. It's kind of liberating, it really is.