If you can not fit the standards you have set for yourself, then ease your standards. Where did they come from, and who imposed them? You who are already perfect in My inception of you need not look for perfection in yourself or in others.

What you consider perfection keeps changing. Once you achieve the perfection you have set for yourself, you raise the rope higher, and you see yourself not quite ever jumping over it. Perhaps you like to live in the gloom of not being what you want to be. You want to be a paragon who sets greater goals always and always achieves them. You try, and yet you are left with a vague anxiety, as if anxiety were your friend. Perhaps you have become so accustomed to anxiety that you think it is your normal state. Perhaps you think anxiety keeps you moving.

But anxiety keeps you fretful and nourishes a hound of defeat at your heels.

Let freedom be your mentor. No longer pile up demand after demand. Be pleased with yourself every now and then or often or always. Why not?

When you don't have to excel, you can pay attention better. When you don't have to win an imaginary race, you can soar. When you accept yourself, you breathe better. Goals are not meant to be impossible. Put no ceiling over your head, and you will stand up tall and you will rise faster.

Depend on Me more than you depend upon yourself. That way you can let go of all that hampers you. Conduct today as if you have not a care in the world. What can you lose by doing that? Only despair. Well, even let go of despair. Honestly, what is it that you despair of? And how does it serve you, this despair, and why do you want to keep it anyway.

Put a medal on your chest. It is a medal of valor. It replaces the badge of defeat you have been wearing, for have you not been a defeated idealist climbing a slippery mountain? Know that you are a beautiful Human being. Consider being satisfied with yourself. You have perfected dissatisfaction. Now apply yourself to perfecting satisfaction.

You can be pleased and keep growing. It is inevitable that you grow. Why then whip yourself to make yourself go faster? You are going fast enough.

Consider that you sit down with Me, and I speak to you of your goodness of heart, and I speak to you of all the good you have done, and I tell you that you have more good to do, and that it will come to you. I affirm that when the occasion arises, you will be there. There is nothing you have to do to get ready. You are already ready.

You are 100% My child, only you have been a child who drives himself and says he must be something else or something more. I tell you that you already are all. You are all you have ever dreamed of. Only you have been looking too far ahead and too far away. Sit in the chair you sit in now, and be happy. Be happy that you are who you are and that you sit in this chair. No matter how humble, be glad it holds you and that you sit in it.

Practice being content. You can aspire and be content at the same time. All is already achieved.