Chasing myself over the cliff

“When I grew up I had kind of special childhood, a special bringing up. My mother was very very sick and when I was around 4 years of age she almost died and the same thing happened about 10 years later on my birthday. She was very close to dying. She was rescued by doctor’s at the last second at the hospital. Children at that time was not always kind to each other, at least not where I grew up, and everyone knew about it but instead of patting my back and giving me support they pretty much bullied me for that. They had a tone around my family, a very negative one, that hurt a lot so instead of feeling sad I got a revenge like attitude that made me compete and made me want to be better and perform better than everyone else. I performed in school, in football, in handball, in honestly everything. I always wanted to be the best one. Why? I tried to compensate because I had so much on my shoulders, so much stress because everything was difficult when I grew up. When I started working as an adult I still wanted to be the best, doing more than expected. Don’t get me wrong, it was great for the workplace and for my career, but not for my my psychical health... I got headaches etc because of all stress that came from always wanting to overperform. My stress and pain got released when I met my wife 15 years ago because she saw the little boy that still was inside me and brought him into the light once again. When I got my own children, and she had been working on my performance overkill,  I could feel that I shifted my focus. I felt good enough in a family context and I actually became more relaxed and started to value my children and being dependant of my wife. I realised having a relationship to someone is more important than trying to be the best in everything i do. Today I guess I’m better than ever, but without chasing myself over the cliff.”