Lower your standards

Dear Jackson and Maddie,

The yard is scattered with bikes, sidewalk chalk and toys while the gardens desperately need to be weeded, grass mowed and tomatoes picked. Then a storm quickly rolls in.

What do we do? We gather the bikes and the chalk. We leave the toys if the rain can’t hurt them. Even if the day’s to do list was long, those plans are abandoned in the face of the storm. We do only what must be done before the storm arrives.

Life is the same. In the midst of a storm, abandon your list, lower your standards and focus only on what MUST be done.

As you can imagine, this was an incredibly difficult lesson for me to learn. At times it was almost comical. I told myself countless times, “Lower your standards, lower your standards.”

In the fiercest part of our family’s storm, my goals were reduced to:

1. End the day with four people alive
2. End the day with four people knowing they are loved

If we managed to accomplish that, it was considered a successful day. We might have eaten fast food or pizza for the fourth time that week, there might be piles of laundry screaming for attention and the house likely wasn’t very clean. But we were all alive and loved. That was all that mattered.

Remember that every trial is a storm that will NOT last forever. This season WILL come to an end.

But until it does prioritize ruthlessly and just live with what doesn’t get done. I know — you never thought you would hear your mother say that! But it doesn’t make it any less true.

In the storm, lower your standards to focus on the truly important.

Love,
Mom