Even if no one else says that they appreciate it, I do: Thank you for being consistent. For being reliable. For showing up and being there — even if you’re not always at your best.
Like a lot of other people, I was raised to think that I had to do exceptional things for what I did to matter. My parents were both perfectionists and very busy and driven themselves. Anything less than extraordinary wasn’t even going to register on their radar.
And I pushed myself hard to excel as a child. I won awards. Had prodigious opportunities. But did they lead directly to success?
No.
There was a secret no one told me: Sporadic excellence was never the key. Instead, being consistent was more important. Responsible, reliable.
Ideally, there would be some moments of excellence sprinkled in there somewhere. I suppose the best case scenario wouldn’t just be an endless parade of mediocre days. But the highlights themselves were a lot less important than the overall general pattern of being there. Showing up.
It was this way in school, at work, and in relationships.
Although the trouble with being consistent in relationships was that it was easy for others to take that quality of mine for granted. They say “ the squeaky wheel gets the grease” for a reason, don’t they? Being laidback and consistent and mostly taking care of myself sometimes meant I’d have times when I was back-burnered because a partner was off catering to someone more difficult. But a funny thing happened over time: Either those partners tired of the difficult personalities — or I realized it wasn’t the relationship for me. Either way, what needed to happen, happened.
The reality is that some losses are a gain. And when you stop investing time and energy into people who are wrong for you, you end up with more of those things to put into people who are right for you.
It’s not the love story that the movies sell us, but there really is something fantastic about being consistent — and I’ve found that my favorite people not only appreciate that quality in me but are consistent in return.