My Biggest Supporter and Harshest Critic

Believe it or not, my biggest supporter and harshest critic are the same person — my husband.

I have always made it a point to choose friends who make me want to be a better person (in some respect) and to whom I can look up to. I do this at work — I would rather be surrounded by a whole lot of people who are smarter than me than be the smartest of them all. How else can one learn and grow?

That being said, it is sometimes hard to reach that magical silver platinum bar he has set for me and would I be the same if he were one of those super-supportive, anything-you-do-is-amazing husbands? My single biggest take-away is that I can work very hard at something and still never achieve it (i.e., perfectly composed and grammatically correct articles). It takes a great deal of strength to come to terms with knowing with absolute certainty that I will never achieve or have something. I always look on the bright side though [queue Monty Python’s song] — I can speak two languages fluently. Our lives are always a balance. Each one of us has something that someone else does not — [and we learn to] live with it.