During my divorce in 2003, I went through some difficult times; I needed professional help and this I got from a very good Psychologist. It took just 6 one-hour sessions before he was happy to let me go. His final advice contained the following: Have the courage to be incomplete. How he had reached this analysis I really do not know (and silly of me then not to ask him). It is almost 10 years ago that he said this and all this time I have thought about it – being incomplete.
I grew up competing. It is at the very center of the school system and carries on into later life. Everywhere you compete for something or another. Completing is entirely different; it is the hallmark of a perfectionist, which is what I was and perhaps still am (but not so worried about it). But it is no longer an obsession to complete everything; I can be incomplete now.
For more than 10 years, and for my own company, I was away flying somewhere more or less half of the time. Business class and KLM – that’s where you get those tiny miniatures in Delft Blue of those quaint little houses, and you collect them. On this part of the KLM website, you can download an app to find out which houses you still have to collect, perhaps on your next flight. There are even people who post on the Internet what houses they still need. Even back then, before the divorce, it never occurred to me that I had to collect these houses – I could be incomplete. But this is another and lesser form of incomplete, the one I had to work on was inside me.
Bringing up children makes you dig deep into yourself. Most of the time, you can do this without professional help. How do I react when my kids are incomplete at something? Well, for a start I do not push them anymore to achieve, perform or compete; they have reached the age where they have to take care of these themselves. I can make recommendations but I am not a policeman. Being incomplete is not a sin; in fact, just the reverse. Being incomplete is natural. After all, we are all human… (joke intended)
dickwife 