Late May Monte Report

Things have been going pretty well for the past few weeks. My birthday came and went, and I enjoyed it, celebrating by going to lunch or dinner with various friends throughout the week. I spent yesterday with family, and have at least one more birthday dinner coming up. I splurged and got an 80 minute massage, too! Strangely, it was fun getting so much attention, which is not my wont when my birthday comes around.

One thing on the horizon that is going to become a bigger deal as time progresses is that the Head Teller at work is planning on leaving in the Fall, and I've got to figure out if I feel ready to apply for the position. My self-confidence in that regard is in the toilet, and the following quote from Dr. Allen's Coping With Depression helps to explain why. It's so hard for me to do anything unless I can do it really well, and I'm not (yet) confident that I am capable of being a really great Head Teller. This perfectionistic attitude is the sort of "self-generated stress" that I mentioned in my last post. Because my perfectionism leads me into depression, I will need to rein it in if I am to ever successfully advance at work.

From Coping With Depression:

"Perfectionism is a prime example of self-generated stress that can provide continual mental fuel to stress pileup. Being perfectionistic, you are preoccupied with evaluation, criticism, and making mistakes. You continually put yourself on trial, subject to disapproval from within and without. Perfectionism spans an array of distressing emotions, including anxiety, frustration, shame, resentment, and depression. Perfectionism not only escalates negative emotion but also undermines positive emotion: being perfectionistic you deprive yourself of pleasure and satisfaction by focusing all your attention on how you've fallen short rather than enjoying whatever success you've achieved. No matter how well you do, no matter how successful you may be, you can continue to raise the bar, fall short of your high aspirations, and feel like a failure. . . . [P]erfectionism can become oppressive when high standards are coupled with self-doubt, a pervasive sense of inadequacy, and unstable self-esteem. When you pursue perfection for the sake of overcoming feelings of insecurity or inferiority, you're likely to wind up in the vicious circle of a losing battle that fuels anxiety and depression.