How many times have you heard that, read that, been told that, felt that?
Never a day goes by where there isn’t an article or link on social media that tells us what we are all doing wrong in life. In fact, it has so saturated my media feeds that it was just screaming out to me to write this article about this nefarious push to make us all feel useless, inept and unworthy.
In just the last few weeks I have seen Facebook proclaim to the world that we are doing all of these things wrong. Surely you have all seen them too.
You’re doing your washing wrong. This one published by a Real Estate and Property organisation. They are also experts in clothes washing apparently.
You’re brushing your teeth wrong. The publisher of this one had me gobsmacked (sorry for the pun). An architecture and design page. What designing buildings has to do with brushing teeth is well beyond my intellect.
You’re cutting your nails wrong. This one published by an organisation (that shall remain nameless) whose sole purpose is to ‘bring together like-minded individuals focused on personal growth and expanding their consciousness’. But only if they all cut their nails right it would seem.
You’re folding your sheets wrong. What? Letting fly with a few curse words and eventually rolling your fitted sheet into a ball and shoving it in the linen cupboard is wrong? Who knew?
You’re opening your Pringles container wrong. Oh no, how can we go on? Someone seriously has too much time on their hands.
The yoga enthusiasts don’t escape either, they’re wrong too apparently. ‘India’s oldest yogini says you’re doing yoga wrong if you’re working up a sweat’…umm two words, Bikram Yoga.
Then they ramp up the guilt provoking accusatory language – The ‘13 dumbest kitchen mistakes we’re all guilty of’…All guilty of? Really? My hubby doesn’t even really cook. Maybe that is the mistake that he is guilty of?
And then there’s the ‘let’s really punish our readers’ with a long list of things that they do wrong. ‘13 ‘historical’ things you learned in school that are simply dead wrong’ (was grammar one of them?), ‘14 mistakes most people make at airports’ and the longest and most self-esteem robbing list of all.
‘28 ways you may have been doing things wrong all along’. No specifics in the title, just a general accusation that we are pretty much crap at everything.
Let’s not forget the article that literally screams at you in capitals ‘YOU’LL NEVER SIT THIS WAY AGAIN…Why you should never cross your legs’.
Followed up by the ‘Right and wrong ways for couples to sleep together’ this one even has informative graphics to show couples how to spoon in bed because we have been getting that wrong too.
Oh thank you, Facebook Yoda for your wise, wise words. I never knew how wrong I was at doing pretty much everything until you kindly pointed out my ineptitude. You are, after all the font of all knowledge and of course, we all know that everything on Facebook is true.
Although, I do take comfort in you answering that age-old question that we have been struggling with for generations…the right way to hang toilet paper. Thank you for your informative article ‘According to the patent for toilet paper, there IS a correct way to hang it’. Phew! Thankfully it seems that I have actually been doing that right all along.
Like other lifelong perfectionists, I all too often fall in to the trap of ‘this is not good enough’, ‘will they see through my fake it til you make it’, ’am I doing it wrong?’ The pressure that I put on myself is unnecessary, counterproductive and exhausting. And yet, I keep doing it to myself and everywhere I look reinforces my belief that I am actually doing it wrong.
But deep down I know that I am not because, to be brutally honest, I have decided to no longer give a rats a** if I am doing it right or wrong. I’m doing the best that I can and surely that is enough.
In a world where more than ever, we are expected to be perfect parents, awesome employees, fantastic friends, philanthropic wonders and superstars in everything that we do the pressure to be perfect and get everything right is becoming simply unbearable. And to be quite frank, ridiculous.
And who said that everything has to be done the right way or decided which way is the right way? When did we and why did we buy into this fallacy? Who really cares if you’re doing it wrong, will the world as we know it end?
Through mindfulness, meditation, ignoring my self-doubt and stopping to smell the roses I am finally becoming more self-aware and less worried about perfection. And with this clarity has come the realisation that I am not doing it wrong and even if I am…who cares. It’s my life, my decision, my way or the highway.
So ladies, do yourself a favour. Reclaim your faith in yourself, banish that self-doubt and let your awesomely flawsome self shine through.
Trust me, you are not doing it wrong. And even if you are doing it wrong, embrace it, flaunt it, celebrate it and teach everyone you know how to do it wrong too.