I happen to love the word rubbish. It’s such a British word, isn’t it? And I am a Brit, after all… even if I do consider myself a bit more European these days, having lived in Portugal since I was ten. But still, some things never leave you, and “rubbish” is definitely one of them. I use it a lot.
If someone says something I don’t quite believe, I’ll usually call it out straight away — “Rubbish!” — often with a laugh. It’s that kind of word, isn’t it? Not overly harsh, not aggressive… just a slightly cheeky way of saying, “I’m not buying that.”
I also use it in a much more self-deprecating way. If I’ve made something and it hasn’t quite turned out how I’d hoped, I’ll say, “oh, that’s a bit rubbish that is.” And to be fair, sometimes it really is!
And then there’s “pants”… which I also use far more than I probably should to describe something that’s just a bit… well… rubbish in a different way.
But when you really think about it, it’s funny how casually we use words like that. Especially about ourselves. How quick we are to dismiss something we’ve done as “rubbish” just because it’s not perfect. As if anything less than exactly what we imagined isn’t worth much at all. I’ve definitely done that over the years. More times than I can count.
But the older I get, the more I realise that not everything has to be brilliant to have value. Not everything has to be perfect to be worth doing. Sometimes things are a bit messy, a bit off, a bit… rubbish. And that’s just part of the process. Learning, trying, experimenting, creating.
If everything we did was perfect first time, life would be incredibly dull. And probably quite short on growth too. So now, when I catch myself thinking something I’ve done is “a bit rubbish”, I try not to let that be the final word on it. It might not be my best, but it doesn’t mean it’s worthless.
And sometimes, it’s not even rubbish at all. Just… not what I expected. Which is a very different thing.
This is something I touch on in my book too — that idea of being a bit kinder to yourself, letting go of perfection, and not writing things off too quickly. If that resonates, you can find it on Amazon and if you google The Enchanted Midlife by Suzy Turner, you will also find it on numerous other online bookstores.
If you’re taking part in the A to Z Blogging Challenge this year, let me know in the comments so I can check out your posts. And if you’d like to catch up on the rest of mine, you can find some of them here: A is for Alchemy, B is for Becoming, C is for Cycles, D is for Disillusionment, E is for Energy, F is for Flaws, G is for Grumpy, H is for Hormones, I is for Intuition, J is for Joy, K is for Kindness, L is for Laughter, M is for Midlife, N is for Nourish, O is for Overthinking, P is for Purpose, Q is for Quiet.
