On Feeling Proud and Taking Risks

I'm a perfectionist.
I've known this since I was six and would cry over getting one wrong on my spelling tests.
I tried to battle it by not caring.
Trying to desensitize myself of the act of obsessing over things largely out of my control.
But blase never came naturally because the truth of the matter is that I care too much.
About every little thing: the way that person looks at me, fights left unresolved, percentages dipping by point five, falling just short of a lofty goal.
I beat myself up because I put so much pressure on myself that I can't even reach the door to all the things I want to achieve.
Sometimes it works in my favour.
Caring a lot breeds drive and determination and genuine relationships. Hard work is a result of the need to achieve and achievement is a result of hard work.
I moved to Paris.
And I worked so hard to achieve this and it was a major achievement.
I got here.
I made it.
It's been almost a month and I'm still here and I'm still happy and I'm still alive.
But there is so much I still want, so many things I want to see, and I beat myself up for 'not being able' to achieve these things. I put that in quotations because I don't believe in not being able to do things.
But the fact of the matter is that it is healthy to be proud, to celebrate the things we have achieved, from as small as making a new best friend to as big as moving to another country.
And my drive will always push me to achieve more.
It's about making a friend of a foe.
Things are meant to happen because the universe works in strange ways and things line up when we need them to.
Look around you.
Count the things you are proud of.
The things you have built or collected or bred with your bare hands, your sweating skin, your determined eyes.
And be proud of them.
We are capable of so much.
It's about making something of that possibility.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUg7PSuC3ZU