Demons

For the first roughly 34 years of life, I believed I had no aberrant, peculiar or disagreeable habits or personal disabilities. The last ten years, however, have proven me wrong. Patience, once my shining hallmark, has eroded to the point that it now abruptly ends, mid-whatever-crisis, and vanishes completely without warning at all. On a related note, much of my tolerance is gone, though I notice this mostly at Wal-Mart, where I still inexplicably find myself far too often. I won't even go in to the vitriol coursing through me during these visits, but suffice it to say that I have few nice thoughts about many of my fellow shoppers.

Preparedness is another area that finds me lacking. It isn't that I don't eventually get prepared for whatever event is happening (usually involving a trip...to Wal-Mart), or that I don't make consistent progress toward the goal of actually leaving my house, it's just that I take FOREVER to get out the door! Do I have keys, money, correct shoes, hat, jacket, are the windows closed, stove off, doors locked, lights off, water off, things straightened up (OMG, that's another issue), alarm on, dog out, where is my cell phone, do we have grocery bags, library books, lists, children aboard and ready to roll? And there is my wife, sitting in the running car, wondering why it is taking me 17 minutes to get out of the house.

Order-Structure-Cleanliness-Efficiency-Precision. Oh dear, this is huge, simply massive. Probably my worst trait of all time in that I want these five qualities in every aspect of my existence. And the thing is, I rarely feel that everything is in order to the degree that will allow me to feel comfortable with the state of affairs in which I find myself. Check that, not rarely, absolutely never. Never is the word that is accurate because there is always something out of place, dusty, broken, missing, unkempt, ajar, askew, bowled over, incomplete...I could go on with many more adjectives and descriptions of unacceptable conditions, but I won't because I am about to have a stroke-seizure-heart attack just thinking about such heinous things. At the very least, I need a personal valet-concierge-maid-butler-gardener-nanny-car washer-body guard-personal trainer-interior decorator... preferably embodied by one individual who performs all these functions silently and virtually invisibly.

Check this definition from Wikipedia: Perfectionism, in psychology, is a belief that perfection can and should be attained. In its pathological form, perfectionism is a belief that work or output that is anything less than perfect is unacceptable. At such levels, this is considered an unhealthy belief, and psychologists typically refer to such individuals as maladaptive perfectionists.

Sloth-Laziness. The king demon that tries to wrestle me to the ground at every turn. "Why make your bed or iron your clothes or clean up your dishes after breakfast" it screams at me. "You would rather get drunk, eat pork rinds and sleep in the garbage can" goes the bellowing. Just where is that valet-concierge-car washer anyway? Mowing the lawn?!

Correct Decisions. I want to be able to execute every single decision in my life, from investments to what to wear to Wal-Mart to what gift I bring my wife, with precision and accuracy never before experienced in human history. Maybe this is over the top, but I don't care at all, it is blunt truth.

Knowledge. Simply put, I want to know all things so that I am prepared to make perfect decisions at all times. "There is no substitute for knowledge." Is W. Edwards Deming still alive?

Now I am beginning to laugh at myself because this is ridiculous. Nobody on this earth is perfect. I know that there is only one that is perfect, and that one is Jesus Christ. The Bible exhorts us to become more and more like Him, so that is my pursuit. Until the time comes that we are taken in the twinkling of an eye, perhaps I should work for Lexus. Or Wal-Mart.