Why Compliments Are Hard to Hear

It’s strange that receiving compliments is difficult. I would think they would be welcomed with open arms yet instead I find myself wanting to dismiss them.

Joe Hudson has this great line, “Ego is as much as what you don't think you are as what you think you are.” So if someone compliments me for my parenting they are challenging that part of me that thinks it’s important to think of myself as a bad father.

There are so many things I could be doing and I keep doing things I shouldn’t. How could that be what a good father is?

If I dismiss their compliment then everything carries on like normal. Accepting the compliment means I have to update the story I tell myself and that could mean I cause a part of me to…die? Retire?

I can’t simultaneously be a terrible father and an excellent one at the same time. One story must come to an end and even though it may be the sad one, it is also the familiar one. And the newer story’s higher standards are scary despite the fact I’m already meeting them.