Nobody is Perfect

I am without a doubt a perfectionist. When I looked up the definition of perfectionist I found it to be 'a person who refuses to accept any standard short of perfection.' This is me in a nutshell. Here is my story.

Over the weekend my extended family was getting together for a belated Easter celebration. Not everyone was able to make it on Easter weekend so we decided to get together a week late. The celebration was being held at my parents' house and I hadn’t asked if they needed us to bring anything but I thought why not take this opportunity to bake something! I decided on Cream Egg Macarons.

Despite the higher level of difficulty to make macarons I had made them before and everything turned out so I wasn’t worried. I started baking the shells and everything went smoothly. When I got to the filling things were on track and everything seemed to be great …. until it wasn't. I waited the suggested time for the filling and the shells to cool, but when I started assembling it was obvious that the chocolate cream egg filling was still too warm. The filling starting to melt and ooze over the shells. The delicate macaron cookies had become a mess of melted chocolate. I was devastated. Too devastated to even take a photo (which is very unlike me!)

I tried to salvage what I could by getting them into the freezer, but the damage was done. I of course was upset, I had put my time and effort into these cookies and they didn’t work out. I figured I had three options to consider moving forward. I had a decision to make.

Option 1 – Keep them at home. I was embarrassed to think that my failure would be displayed on a plate for all to see, but also realized that if I kept them at home I would likely eat them all. Not the best plan.

Option 2 - Throw them in the garbage. Nobody would see them, I wouldn't over indulge and eat them all, but it seemed like such a waste of money and time. Could I really justify throwing them out?

Option 3 – Suck it up and share them. Put my failure on a plate for all to see and hope that they will still love me (OK I am exaggerating here....I know no matter what my family loves me)

Option 3 won. I took them, mess and all, to the Easter dinner … and you want to know what happened next? Everyone loved them! I got so many compliments about how delicious they were. Someone even remarked that they can usually only get these at specialty bakeries.

I am sure many of you can relate to this story. The experience made me think about the high standards of perfection that I hold myself to and how much of an impact it has on me and my mental health. There are only so many hours in the day and sometimes "good enough" needs to be OK! It is important to remember that most of the time we are our own worst critic and our friends and family are far less judgy of us then we are of ourselves. Let's embrace that and stop being so damn hard on ourselves!

In the end I am so glad I went with Option 3, I learned something about myself and my family got to enjoy the treats (despite how ugly I thought they were)!