Bear with me, folks.  My descent into mediocrity continues, along with my rally cry against success.  Okay, look.  Here's the deal.  I am NOT advocating some inferior, low achieving life style where we dance around and play the hokey pokey and strive for nothing.  Not at all.  Nope.  Rather, I am deconstructing the idea of success and how the world defines it.  How our culture defines it.  How we in turn absorb "their" definition and spin our wheels trying to attain it.  

When all along, it seems, we don't really even want to get in on that rat race.  Yet we do it.  And as we chug along like a gerbil on a wheel, we rail and rant and shout about how much we want to do differently.  Except for one thing.  We don't really do it differently.

We seem to hate the fast paced, keep up with the Joneses, celebrity and fame culture.  We seem to despise the unrealistic expectations of domestic perfection, endless youth, skinny and thin, and successful career standard our world sets for us.  Yet, we spend hours on Pinterest filling our minds with unattainable goals and countless recipes we will never have the time to complete.  Or the motivation.  And, yes, I am right there with you.  We devour magazines and books and television and media, being consumers of this crazy obsession with impressing others as Mrs. SuperMom of the Century.  While we groan and complain about how unrealistic it all is.  

Listen.  I've been standing back watching a strong and similar reaction to several events within the last week.  The reaction tells me that most of us are caught in some wildly dysfunctional cycle of striving.  We, Jesus loving women who want to be authentic, are caught up in a drama that we all seem to hate.  And, we don't seem to know how to rage against the machine and just stinking get out of the rat race.  Do you wonder how I've come to this conclusion?

Because Jen Hatmaker's blog about being the Worst End of School Year Mom Ever has struck a chord in all of us.  A-men, sister!  We all shout in affirmation.  Because finally someone is telling it like it is.  And letting us know, through complete transparency, that we are all tired and worn thin from trying to keep up appearances.  In fact, this blog post has gone so viral that it was featured on MSN and Mrs. Hatmaker appeared on The Today Show yesterday morning.  To be interviewed about how she is keeping it real.  While the audience all shook their heads in agreement about the lunacy of all that we are asked to do.

Hmmm.  Seems to me we all just need someone to take up our cause and be our voice and say, "ENOUGH!  This is who we are.  We can only do so much!  No more facades or unrealistic expectations!"  

And then, yesterday, I read a different blog post about 23 ways to stay sane with children?  It struck a chord in me, much like Jen Hatmaker's post, and I felt emotionally buoyed by the sense of comradery with others who have been oppressed by this crazy, hyper achieving culture. 

Apparently, I am not alone.  Because when I shared that blog post on my Facebook wall, I saw that it had been shared over and over and over again.  Comments like, "YES!"  And, "I needed this!" were posted all over.

Don't we all love a tip li that starts with, "lower your expectations?"  Finally!  Advice I can actually implement!  That's a great #1 for 23 ways to stay sane this summer.  Preach it!  Let's sit around in our jammies till the afternoon while dishes pile up and not feel an ounce of guilt about it.

And the trifecta symptom that we are all pretty much done with the bar being set beyond human capabilities?  This was my Facebook status this morning:

"Public service announcement: Make up? I'm over it. Listen-- if I'm going to workout & run 4-5 days a week in TX heat, I simply can't be bothered to also get all ready everyday. It's too much to ask. Don't be startled when you see my make up- less yet healthy self."

Within just an hour, I had dozens of likes and comments and affirmatives on this status.  And it made me wonder something.

If we are all so over make-up and trying to dress to impress and too much being expected of us, then why on earth do we keep doing it?  

It's like some crazy version of Stockholm Syndrome.  We feel some strange attachment to the point of defending the very captor that binds us in this trap of reaching for an unattainable goal.

How's that working for us?  We feel this need to be the perfect volunteer mom whose child earns all the awards.  We must schedule and perfectly occupy our children with incredible color-coded goals and activities every day of the summer.  All the while with perfectly fixed hair and make-up reflecting how beautiful we are in our Pinterest inspired Chambray shirt and colored jeans worn just as pictured online.  

(P.S.  Don't be a hater when you see me in this outfit.  It was a birthday gift.  Therefore attainable.  Plus, the other days of the week I am no doubt in running shorts and a t-shirt from 1992.)
 
In the midst of drowning in all this striving and straining to have it all, we grab the nearest life preserver and feel incredibly affirmed when someone says, "Whoa, Nelly!  I am no Wonder Woman."   Obviously.  Because blog posts and social media and the response they conjure are signs of how we just need someone to lead us in another direction.

We need someone to remind us of the truth.  We need someone to rally for inferiority.  Or rather, REALITY.

Listen.  I am not every woman.  It's NOT all in me.  Whatever you want done, baby, I'm realizing I can't do it naturally.  

Here's the voice of reason.  The whole truth.