This week the strangest thing happened to me. Due to frustration over the way life turns out sometimes I was momentarily reduced to a childish level of emotion and actually whined “I try so hard to do everything right!”
This sentiment, as it happens, is completely irrelevant when life hands you one of those “No, no, no, this is not for you” moments. Because no matter how well-intentioned, disciplined, detailed and thoughtful my very best efforts are, there are just too many variables in the world to make those efforts any guarantee of the desired outcome.
Like practicing my piece for the piano recital over and over and over again?
Doing Everything Right: One last practice before the first piano recital, spring 1968. The only one we really did practice for well in advance, as one must for “Alpine Yodel” in three different keys!
We’ll pause for a moment of honest introspection here, 9. Lily and I know that, aside from the first one, we were never that diligent preparing for the recital. After that It was a last-ditch two week practice extravaganza right before the event.
But you tried so hard those last two weeks!
By some miracle (called Mom, who strictly enforced our eleventh-hour efforts) we managed to come out okay. Not a total embarrassment, though never in a position to even dream about being the best student in the prestigious last spot on the program.
From my more mature vantage point I now understand we lacked passion for piano.
Definitely not the level of passion required to scratch the surface of greatness, Lily, that’s for certain. And, as you’re just beginning to experience, we have a much higher level of passion for theater. Over decades we’ll work very hard at that. There will be several performances that we feel succeeded, the sometimes bitter reality of ones that didn’t, and the frustrations of not being cast in the first place so we never found out what our “doing everything right” approach would have achieved.
You can put your whole heart into something and still miss the mark, sometimes by a mere fraction. To me this seems even more true in the arts- -music, theater, writing, to name a few- -because much of who is chosen, whose work is selected as the “everything right” for whoever is doing the evaluating, is in large part subjective.
There’s not exactly something wrong with doing everything right. Details, discipline, and dedication often get better results than doing nothing. But when doing everything right is used in the hope of forcing specific outcomes, that’s where I think it goes wrong, especially inside the person who is trying so hard. Our heartfelt efforts matter, but they are not the only thing that matters. When the outcome becomes an addiction, even for a moment, that’s where the childishness comes in.
Coveting material objects. Addiction to specific outcomes. The inhumane desire to, through our “doing everything right” actions, bend another person to our will. The perfect ingredients for a dark and destructive emotional stew.
It happens all the time when you are very small, before you understand the mechanics of trying to do everything right and are still under the construct that the entire world revolves around you and your desires. Take, for example, the Gold Purse incident, c. 1963. At that time I was so little Mom could still easily hoist me onto one hips. The event that gave rise to the incident was the purchase of two beaded evening bags, one white and one gold. She’d shown them to Dad. The white one, she said, was for her cousin Myrna, a high school graduation gift. The other, she said, was for Suzie.
For me! My young egocentric mind fired with ecstasy. That shiny, very grown up object would soon be mine, not only something pretty but a sure sign that Mom and Dad now considered me a big girl, no longer a baby.
I was three years old.
Trying to do everything right: Surely I’d earned the grown-up Gold Purse at the tender age of three?
That same evening devastating news arrived. The Gold Purse was going to a different Suzie, Mom’s other young cousin who, like Myrna, was graduating from high school. My fire of ecstasy was obliterated by a tsunami of utter defeat. I cried, I sobbed, I wailed for the loss of my anticipated big girl treasure, and this is why I remember being small enough to ride on Mom’s hip, because that’s where I was when she held me tight until my rage of tears died away.
The universe will not be bullied by our human attempts to force outcomes, something I’m sure many of us are taught throughout life. At three, at sixty-six, and all those times in between.
This doesn’t mean we should give up trying- -to do our best, even to try to do everything right. The magic key is to take joy in the effort, not the outcome.
Sounds like you’ve been hearing Ruby in this run up to the end of school concert season. She’s an equally harsh critic of herself. 😉
It’s a useful way to be for things like mastering skills, but sometimes not so helpful in interpersonal relationships! Good luck to us both!! And, as ever, I LOVE hearing Ruby practice!!!