When will you be good enough?

So as things roll around in my head this seemed like a good topic for discussion in the singles forum. Those of you who know me well know that I tend to have impossibly high standards for everyone, especially myself. Sometimes they are clearly defined and superhuman (e.g. I should be able to forgive anyone anything instantly and shouldn't let it bother me), and sometimes it's just a vague sense of I can and should do "better".

Many of you also know that I've been working on losing weight. Recently I was even able to put on a pair of shorts (yep it's shorts season here already) that were the same size as what I wore 20 years ago in middle school (yeah I was fat then too, but its still a good feeling). But what baffles me is that I'm currently living in one of the 10 thinnest countries in the world (as measured by BMI), yet every local female that comes to visit us (and they are all pretty much half my size), when she sees her reflection she says something about how she is fat and needs to lose weight. Every single one of these normal sized girls is convinced she is fat.

So questions to discuss or at least think about (because this isn't about weight or forgiveness this is about finding the balance between accepting ourselves as we are now without losing the motivation to pursue good change):

Do you think there's a social stigma against full self acceptance? Are we encouraged to be negative and dissatisfied with ourselves?
How do you measure goals? How do you define good enough? How much power over your self worth does achievement or failure have?
How has your faith given you a more positive view of yourself? How has it given you a more negative view?

And other thoughts as applicable.

I think the world is black and white on this.

Either one can blame anything and everything on society and it is not the individuals responsibility any more
("He became a bully / killer / rapist because he had a childhood, poor thing")

Or society sets the standards too high for anyone to ever reach it
My IT management book jokingly said that an ideal (IT project) leader has 10 years of experience and is no more than 20 years old

I don't think so, I may use myself as an example. I have normal body size with good looking, but I have desire to keep losing some weight to make myself feel good. If I saw someone with some skinny I don't feel any bad with them, and I would even admire to be like them, then when If gain some weight, I could feel also at loss, so now I have released that I prefer mid normal body size.

May be in America, in our community such a thing does not exist, I would say that some people like to make themselves skinny or fat, it is possible to follow healthy diet.

If I feel good with my looking and weight is healthy that is all matter for me, again then that is my standard. I love to visit Doctors often to check my healthy, since I have responsibility to take care of myself and myself worth.


I will explain this by using the song "Pretty Hurts" by Beyoncé.

[video=youtube;LXXQLa-5n5w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXXQLa-5n5w[/video]


I believe there is nothing I can do with my body appearance. The result is positive , Yes, love yourself for you can't make one hair white or black, so we have limits with our desires. god himself spent his time to create a human who resemble himself. It worth to be like him. So I love myself.

Cinder
Good Thread.
I feel it is because at least we stop a moment to get the right perspective. That we are good, more than good in Our Fathers or Jesus's Eyes.

I think its not a social stigma but one could get to feel alienated from society if they fully accept themselves. Society is just too damn busy so not many individuals are that way.

If I can work my day and go home proud of myself that's "good enough".

Achievement shouldn't have power over my self worth but its a "doing society" in America so sometimes I fall for it.

Without faith I wouldn't have held on in life to this point, but I am going a bit crazy, no seriously...

I strongly believe to that humbleness can often be mis represented as low self esteem...when its not.

I don't know.... my intuition tells me that what those women were upset about was not his positive attitude, but his failure to identify with their feelings? Frankly, that kind of person would upset me too!

Quote for the day: "Good enough" never is.

You will never be good enough because you know too much about yourself. If you knew as much about other people as you know about you, you would feel a lot better about yourself. And probably have a much lower opinion of others, but...

I know my faults, failures, weaknesses and shortcomings much better than I know yours. So to me you seem to be a much better person than I will ever be.

When I was in my early 30s, I had a girlfriend who was 10 years older than me who expressed that after 40 you start liking yourself in a way that you didn't when you were younger. I thought it was sort-of silly because I had resigned myself to accept who I was, despite my considerable 'flaws'. I'll tell ya, she was right. I don't know why or how, but I hear it from my peers and those women older than I.

IF we are solely talking about physical bodies? Let's take hold of some reality. Do you look around at people? Just sit down and watch them move. I happen to work and live in a place where there are a lot of people who walk through my workplace. So many different bodies. Long legs, short legs, VERY tall, rather petite, adult, elderly, children, infants, pregnant....too-thin bodies to too-fat bodies. I watch them move. I see the ones who talk with their hands - nearly dancing in their effort to express themselves, I see the ones who barely move their lips or don't make much by way of sound. I watch their faces as they speak to their loved ones, or express pain, or express hope. Dark skin, fair skin, long hair, short hair, no hair. I love watching them... some are thrilled that their balance works still and they can walk around; some are in so much pain or infirm that the farmer's market might be their only outing all week. Their bodies are all gifts - in various forms, with various levels of health or dysfunction, aesthetic beauty or the lack thereof.

It hits me in these moments: What a beautiful, varied creation.

Even further? Let's renew our minds with the Bible. You know the moment that you really understood grace with regard to salvation? That same moment happens when we are aware of how beautiful a creation we are. God MADE us like this. We've been PERFECTLY and wonderfully made. He knew us in our mother's womb. He knows the number of the hair on our heads. We have been fearfully and WONDERFULLY made. Isn't that exciting? Like Lynx says above... we'll never be good enough.... if I look through my eyes and you look through your eyes. Let's look through God's eyes.

Sometimes I get so excited by an idea I just go on. I don't intend to be insensitive. If you had any idea how much I've struggled with my own physical worth, you would realize the miracle it is that I am here. Even for here, I struggle with the whole worth thing. I sure don't have it all together.... but I know who God is... and he sure does.

I've never wanted to be an obnoxious and arrogant person and I've always swung too far in the opposite direction. I'm not a lowly worm. Finding balance is difficult, but would be even more difficult without Christ.

Dude, I don't think I've ever seen you come across as obnoxious or arrogant - like ever.

I'm not sure it's in your nature.

But if you're working on being more assertive, that's not a bad thing. Everyone should be assertive.

Yes, I'm learning to be more assertive. Unfortunately it's in everyone's nature to be prideful. I've had prideful moments in my life, but the vast, vast, vast majority of them tend to be the complete opposite of arrogance. And that's not really valuing who God's made me either. Thanks for the kind words, brother.

I am still trying to find a balance between full self-acceptance and the need to improve myself. Growing up in an environment where I was constantly told that I am not "good enough", oftentimes with Biblical references, I still believe that I am short of the perfect standard I want to attain. This attitude has turned me into a stickler for perfection. I look to be perfect in everything I do, almost to the point of obsessing over it - the perfect way to dress up, the perfect date, the perfect woman, the perfect proposal, the perfect family, the perfect format for a document, the perfect business presentation, etc.

I know there are some areas where perfection is demanded and there are other areas where we are accepted the way we are. I am still unable to clearly demarcate both these areas. For example, there is a perfect standard in our character (to be like Christ Jesus) and there is a perfect standard when it comes to our spiritual maturity (read, Colossians 1:28). But is there a perfect standard when it comes to our physical bodies? Is there a perfect standard in the way we carry ourselves?

I am a person who is comfortable seeing things in black and white. I set goals which are quantifiable and achievable. When I assess myself at the end of the term, I evaluate whether these goals have been achieved or not. I do not comfort myself by thinking "Well, I have reached somewhere, so that's good enough." Instead, I tend to be harsh on myself, almost to the point of condemning myself for falling short of the set-goals.

I did not realise that this was a problem until last year, when my boss advised me to go easy on myself. She said that if I continued in this way, it would not only affect my self-motivation but it would also affect the way I deal with others' failures. True enough, I have made a couple of mistakes recently which I still regret for. Belatedly, I have realised that I have to identify a certain "acceptance threshold" to consider something as good enough, but I am haven't been able to define this for myself.

My faith was partially responsible for my negative view of myself and the world around me. Or maybe, you could attribute it to the negative environment around me where we are constantly told that we are sinners who are not good enough.

The other reason for this negative view is that I was influenced by the book 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand. If a book can influence your view of everything in the world around you, it will have to be this one. Read this book once and you trample on virtues like mercy, compassion, forgiveness and grace. I am still picking my way back to God after my inner eyes were blinded by this book.

This is what makes me wonder (and it is one of Cinder's questions). When is it okay to console ourselves for being good enough and when is it okay to demand utmost perfection?

Pride is a very interesting emotion, takes many forms, is not always bad, but when it is bad, it manipulates people into making decisions that go against their core values and wisdom, and even love! Personally i think that hate is not the opposite of love, this kind of pride is!