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| When Your Best Isn't Good Enough - by Kevin Leman |
Leman is a Christian from the Adler school of practical psychology. When I was in sales, quickly reading someone's personality was important, and we often discussed it. The receptionists even said they could spot the agent of the customer who walked in the office.
Leman wrote the Birth Order Book, which is a classic in its field. When students wrote me two weeks early for the syllabus "because I want an A in the class," I said, "OK, I will if you answer a question for me. Are you the first-born in your family or an only child?"
Every time, I got this response, "How did you know I was the first in my family?" First-born children and only children are perfectionists. They are often driven to succeed. I would never bother to ask.
Babies of the family are fun, lovable, sociable, and not driven to succeed. Sometimes the baby is born so late that the child is almost like an only child, sociable and lovable (the baby treasured as surely the last one) but also serious and mature.
When I identified a counselor as the baby in the family and gave her a book, she grinned and hugged herself (a present!) but was not sure when she would read it (too busy enjoying people).
That leaves the middle children, who are the most normal, the most overlooked, and the least likely to seek counseling for any reason. We middle children are given few pages in the Leman book and even fewer pages of our own in the family photo album. But we middle children are also diplomats, used to establishing a bargain between the older and the younger.
Frustrated Perfectionists
I was a Leman fan when I saw this book and bought it. I was stuck in not finishing a book I was writing, and I was not sure why. It also suggested that I had a long-term pattern.Leman calls it a lifestyle based on how we grew up. I had two extremely smart parents who were notable in our town. Those who love doughnuts still talk about Melo Cream, decades after my father retired. "Greg, go back to Moline and start it up again. I miss those cinnamon fries and long johns, pecan rolls and peanut brittle."
My classmates still talk about my mother. One said, "The biggest disappointment in my education was not having your mother at Garfield." Another student said, "Your mother saved my life." On Facebook, someone will say, from time to time, "Was your mother Mrs. Jackson the teacher? She was my favorite."
Needless to say, my parents were driven perfectionists in their professions. They did not realize they were asking a middle child to be a first or an only child. I loved to read, so I got in trouble for reading the entire textbook and answering from lessons not yet assigned. When I changed junior high schools, I had the same algebra lessons all over again, hated it, told my mother, and got told off in class by my teacher.
I am writing about this because I know frustrated perfectionists (like me). The first thing I ask about is birth order. Secondly, there are often complications from blended families, loss of siblings, etc. Birth order is not fate, but it can help us realize why we have certain patterns in life.
Mine was like this - "I want to finish writing the book, but it will not be perfect, so I have to keep working on it. I will set it aside until I think of what else is needed."
Oddly enough, it was a visit to Herman Melville's home that helped me finish Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant. I bought a copy of Moby Dick there and read it cover to cover. He was inspired by the form of a whale breaching the surface of the ocean as he sat writing in his office.
It was a winter of heavy snow in 1850 when Herman Melville planted himself at his writing table and churned out the tale of a fearsome white whale. The book would become an instant failure but would live on as an American classic.
While he wrote, a snowcapped Mount Greylock, resembling a white whale breaching the surface, was always with him.
Source - Berkshire Eagle
Source - Berkshire Eagle
When I was writing Thy Strong Word and thought it needed another 50 pages, Mrs. Ichabod said, "That is enough already. Stop. Print. Finish. It will be imperfect."
In time I had to match the drive to perfectionism with reality. No book is ever without typos and strange mistakes.
I also had to measure the value of the book by the hatred of the watchful dragons of "conservative" Lutheran synods. They were not going to let Reformation Biblical studies clash with their love of Calvin, Zwingli, Hyles, and Paul Y. Cho.
I highly recommend Leman's books, and this one is therapeutic for the frustrated perfectionist.
