First Loser

Recently, someone posted a video of Jerry Seinfeld talking about the Olympics:

The Olympics is really my favorite sporting event, although I think I have a problem with that silver medal. I think, if I was an Olympic athlete, I would rather come in last than win the silver. If you think about it...if you win the gold, you feel good. If you win the bronze, you think: "Well, at least I got something." But if you win that silver, it's like, "Congratulations! You...almost won. Of all the losers, you came in first of that group. You're the number one...loser. No one lost...ahead of you."

I've been struggling lately with my perfectionism. This was brought to screeching clarity last week when I got some blood test results back from the doctor.

You see, my nephew is a missionary with Operation Nehemiah, a ministry working to make a community in South Sudan self-sufficient after decades of civil war (in the pictures on the website, he's clearly the American in glasses). Before Jonathan left in September, he got a battery of vaccines, but there is no current vaccine for malaria, and during his four month stint, Jon was bitten by a mosquito carrying malaria. He suffered with three recurrences of the disease before returning to the states, and just a few days after his return home last month, Jon got sick again.

After a trip to the ER, the doctors discovered that these recent symptoms were not a result of the malaria--but Hepatitis A. Before you "run for the hills"--screaming--lest reading my blog might infect you, Hepatitis A is an inflammation of the liver that is usually not fatal. And, according to the Mayo Clinic, "No specific treatment exists for hepatitis A. Your body will clear the hepatitis A virus on its own. In most cases of hepatitis A, the liver heals completely in a month or two with no lasting damage. Hepatitis A is caused by infection with the hepatitis A virus. The hepatitis virus is usually spread when a person ingests tiny amounts of contaminated fecal matter." Yup. Fecal matter. So, basically, since there is only one well that is the water source for the entire village and eating out of a communal bowl is part of Sudanese culture...you do the math.

Once I received this news, I called my primary care doctor and he recommended that I come in for a blood test. I asked the phlebotomist how likely it was that, if I had it, I passed it on unknowingly while babysitting for a friend before Jon got the diagnosis. She said, "Well, I'm sure you don't feed them fecal matter, so they'll be fine." What about hugs and kisses? "Nope. It's only transmitted through fecal matter, and I'm sure you wash your hands thoroughly, so..." Still, in the meantime, I alerted my places of work--including my friend and the families I tutor for--so that they could decide if they wanted me to wait until I got the results before resuming work. Many opted for this route, but when I got the results back three days later I was happy to announce: "I do not have Hepatitis A!"

You might have thought this was good news. At least I thought it was, but for some of my clients, this was not enough; they still didn't want me to come and tutor their kids. I thought to myself, "Which part of 'I do not have Hepatitis A' don't you understand?!?"

STORY OF MY LIFE: I do everything I'm supposed to do; I knock myself out to do the right thing--AND IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Watching the Olympics these weeks has made me realize that I am just like those egotistical Olympians who say, "Yeah, I won a bunch of National Championships, but I realized it didn't mean anything unless I won a gold medal."

Basically, what they are saying is, "I'm super-privileged: I've got above-average talent, I've been lucky enough to be able to afford pursuing this dream, I've got all my limbs (or at least the ones with this attitude seem to), and I'm good enough to qualify for the Olympics...but if I'm not the best, then 'Chuck it.'" What ingratitude.

And that's what is wrong with me.

If I can't be the best, if I can't be perfect, then I feel like the first loser. And, as any perfectionist will tell you, they would rather not try than do something half-heartedly. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, they'd say. And they would be wrong.

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. --Mother Teresa

If I try, and I fail, at least I tried?

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:1-7).

And I've failed. 

If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or the twentieth); if I cannot take the first without making a fuss about my unworthiness, then I know nothing of Calvary love. --from If, by Amy Carmichael

But Love...never fails.

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:8-13).

That which I know not, teach Thou me, O Lord, my God. --Amy Carmichael

Amen.