Have you ever made a boo-boo?
Today I watched Episode 12, The Adagio, which aired on December 31, 1951.
In this episode, Lucy wants to get into Ricky’s show again, but this time she wants to perform a French dance. Ethel finds her a French dance partner, but everything goes haywire when he tries to court Lucy. Eventually, he even challenges Ricky to a duel!
But then the story takes a completely different turn when the Frenchman admits that he made a “boo-boo.”
He didn’t really want to court Lucy or challenge Ricky to a duel. He was only doing those things because he had been told that this was how Frenchmen were expected to behave. He didn’t actually want any of it.
It got me thinking: How many times have I made a “boo-boo” because I did what I thought was expected of me?
One specific instance was my first marriage.
I married my longtime boyfriend—my first love, with whom I had a long history of breaking up and making up—because we both thought marriage was the next right step.
It is funny how what society tells us is the next right step sometimes isn’t the right step at all.
I knew something wasn’t right, but I kept going because we were in love, and I believed this was simply what people in love did.
Wrong.
In hindsight, I wish I had stepped back long enough to recognize that although we loved each other, we had grown into different people. But we were all each other had, and neither of us wanted to let go—even though letting go may have been better for both of us.
Neither of us had the strength to stop what we had already set in motion.
So, we got married—and it all blew up.
Things felt off, the marriage didn’t work, and I won’t even begin to describe the magnitude of the drama that followed. To keep the story short, we made a boo-boo that took years—and the California divorce process—to correct.
All because I did what I thought was expected of me.
And, oh my, that did not work out.
It made me wonder: Why do we feel that we have to do what is expected of us? Why don’t we listen to our gut—our inner guidance?
Listening to ourselves may disappoint other people. It may make them uncomfortable. It may even lead us through a painful season. But ignoring what we know deep down creates far more turmoil in the end.
Doing what is expected of us makes others comfortable, but it rarely makes us happy.
Isn’t it time you stood back and asked yourself - what makes you really happy?
