My Worst Enemy

My Worst Enemy

I have come to know my worst enemy. Intimately. The demon lurking behind every door. My biggest critic and my most consistent naysayer. This negative force has been with me as long as I can remember. He has haunted my dreams and laughed at my failures. The voice that whispers in my ear reminding me of all that I have to lose. I have come to know my worst enemy. And my worst enemy is me.

This has been a life long struggle. To see past my own imperfections and embrace the rightness of who I am regardless. As I get older I realize that it is more the imperfections that make us who we are than the accomplishments.

Maybe there is beauty in that.

Drive

Being my own worst enemy has its upsides. Throughout my lifetime I have been driven to better myself. While others saw good enough, I saw room to improve. While sounding relentlessly negative on paper, my reality created much more fruitful results.

Instead of being satisfied, I was motivated. Instead of being lazy, I was up at 5:30 in the morning honing my skills. I didn’t want to just pass my medical boards, I wanted to ace them. I didn’t just want to make the easy diagnoses, I wanted to uncover the hidden zebras.

My professional and creative career have are deeply indebted to this drive. I see no other way I would have been able to make it through medical school and residency. There is no way I would have published so much about medicine and personal finance if I was easily able to accept what I consider mediocre.

Of Treadmills

With all the progress I have made, being my own worst enemy also has its drawbacks. I have written extensively about the achievement treadmill. The problem with success is that it only tides one over for short periods of time.

No matter how good I get at something, it is only a brief respite. Eventually I see a way to improve things further. To take it to another level. To accomplish something new and unexpected.

Again, innovation is great. Except when it becomes a hurried, uncomfortable, stressful sensation instead of one of joy. Then success almost starts to feel worse then failure. With failure, at least, there is a concrete end.

There is no end to better. It just keeps going and going.

The Financial Independence Conundrum

What does this have to do with financial independence? Nothing and everything. Although I found a way to realize that perfect is the enemy of good with finances, being free from financial stresses has opened up a world of maladaptive behaviors.

Released from one major stress, my brain is free to obsess about everything else I am now doing. Blogging. Podcasting. Public speaking. These have all become the fodder for my relentless drive.

The Joys of Imperfection (Final Thoughts)

I am trying concertedly not to be my own worst enemy. I will try to accept imperfection and allow it to remain instead of progressively improving. There can be a joy in imperfection. A joy in letting a first attempt stand.

Let’s see how it goes.