There is a word in the English language that irritates me. Ok it is a personal thing. Maybe you love it or at least it doesn’t offend you. The word is over achiever. My response is “says who?” The term is somebody’s judgment. How do you over achieve? Is that like a glass that can only hold so much and if you pour more into it you wind up with spilled milk. I am not an 8-ounce glass; are you? How much I can achieve is pretty much of an unknown. If I achieve a great deal have I achieved more than my capacity, my I Q for instance? Have I achieved more than my parents, teachers or friends thought I would achieve? Why shouldn’t I establish that? If I over achieve it sounds as though I have spent way too much effort in trying to reach my goals. I could have stopped sooner but oh no! I had to keep going and to what end? Why didn’t I just stop with achieve and spend my efforts elsewhere such as taking naps or contemplating my navel (tried that, boring!) So if I just keep on achieving I have obviously exceeded some standard or other. Now a caveat, I took a personality test several years ago and scored “challenger personality” off the charts. So right away you know absolutes and authority tend to “get in my way”. It is not that I don’t respect them in a sense. Yes, I will yield to the red light and take orders from you if you are my boss but there is a limit.

My true respect is gained not from some rule to which I submit. I obey the rules but respect oh that is a different animal! I have great respect for some people, but others, well let’s just say I follow the rules

So here I am having spent my life as an overachiever and I haven’t even started yet. Well, ok maybe I am more than half way through but how much I will achieve and in what fields are pretty much up to me, my health, luck and the good graces of God. If he tells me I am overachieving it is back to navel watching. I am perfectly willing to acknowledge the ways in which I under achieve because I have picked up on clues from the rest of the population that not being able to do certain things defies reason. I cannot step on an escalator going down without my heart racing and my palms sweating. I don’t have good balance and it is possible I may meet my maker at the bottom of an escalator (if I don’t meet Santa first at the bottom of the mall escalator during Christmas season). I can’t open cans easily. Don’t bother to tell me about the automatic kind. I can’t open childproof lids or cork less wine bottles. In other words, my manual dexterity is way below normal. So I will accept under achiever. Probably relationships count here as well, but I was recently married so maybe some levels of achievement can change. In other words, it is possible to go from under achiever to achiever. I won’t live long enough to go to overachiever in marriage, however, I am pretty certain of that.

So as far as I am concerned, my report card is internal when it comes to achieving. Many years ago when I was preparing to start a TV talk show a “boy friend” did me a huge favor. When I told him I was leaving teaching to host and produce a TV show he smiled at me indulgently and with what I am sure he thought was compassion said “ The problem with you honey, is that you never learned your limitations,” I have been meaning to thank him for years. What a boost he gave to someone whose greatest motivation is a challenge! So call me an over achiever and put wind in my sails for my newest venture. God I love it when you talk dirty!