They're Human Too!

Happy weekend!

Does anybody else tend to forget that professionals are still human?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been getting upset a lot at athletes and doctors and teachers, expecting them to have everything together. I keep forgetting that just like me they are human; they mess up, just as much as I do. We tend to place these people on pedestals because of their social status or their job, but they aren’t perfect.

Just as they are limited, so are we. These past few weeks I’ve set some crazy expectations for myself, but in hindsight, I see just how unrealistic these were and how destructive they were to my self-esteem. I’ve expected myself to prepare for this blog, school, and the book review blog; but I haven’t had the time and I’ve seen this and as a result I’ve had to cut back on my to-do list.

I’ve found myself wanting to reach for levels of perfection that are totally unrealistic, and I’ve also been expecting this from others; whoever it is we expect this from, it needs to stop.

Professional athletes aren’t perfect, they have off nights, days, and seasons; but we don’t often give them grace. I understand that they are paid tons of money, but we shouldn’t get upset with them just because they make a mistake. If they made a mistake at a lower level, there wouldn’t be as big of an issue, but because they are considered to be the best we expect them to do things that you can’t expect from a human all the time.

People that work with lives can't be expected to be perfect either. I know we rely on these people, but they have to make fast decisions based on what little information they can gather, can we really expect those choices to be the best all, or even majority, of the time? I don’t think we can.

The only person I would trust to make a fast decision about life and death, is God.

Even teachers and retail workers can’t have such unrealistic goals. There is no way that they will always grade a test correctly, or get you the right item, but when they don’t, we need to have some grace and let them know politely. They are just as human as us, no matter how unlikely that seems.

Perfection isn’t possible for us, only God can have perfection. No matter what our goals are for ourselves or others, there is no way that we will reach them 100% of the time. Let’s stop setting too high standards and accept the best that is given.

I don’t want to say that we shouldn’t set high goals, but let’s keep them realistic and understand when God has different plans than we do.

Let’s be encouraging when someone doesn’t meet what is set before them, but also give some constructive criticism to help them improve for next time. This applies to ourselves as well, I know that some of us are more likely to set unreal goals for ourselves; and when we miss we get frustrated, but we will reach what God intended for us to reach.

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Prayer:

Lord, thank You for bring us on to this earth. Thank You for the time we get to spend with fellow Christians, celebrating in our love for You. Lord, You have blessed us with so many things here on this earth. Thank You.

Please help us to remember just how human everyone is and not get upset over it. Help us to set reasonable standards for ourselves and others. Please guide us this week in how to act and behave.

Thank You for everything. In Your name, Amen.