I grew up trying to be perfect to please my mother. Later, I thought I had to be perfect to make my spouse love me or to make my employer give me the raise.
Academia certainly rewards perfection. We get more doors open when our efforts are perfect, earning the highest scores. The same goes for our work lives, where excellence receives the accolades that precede promotions. Little do we hear about the mistakes made along the way to a path of superb performance. And yet isn’t that imperfection where we spend most of our time … learning and improving?
Were you born perfect?
In all those precious ways with no specific outcomes or results attached, we were perfect. Even if we lagged behind other babies in rolling over or walking or feeding and dressing ourselves, we were perfection.
As we aged, that changed.
We quickly learned that more agreeable behavior or greater independence was prized, and we were encouraged along those paths.
Enter perfection
Insert a lifetime of struggling to be perfect among other emotions like being happy, self-confident, compassionate, and proud of the life we have created.
Before you know it, we’re here: old age.
And, for the very first time, we seriously begin to let go of perfection.
How many of us have said over the last couple of years, “I used to worry about making that perfect, but now I just enjoy what’s here for me to love and appreciate and don’t worry about if it’s perfect or not.”?
Being perfect has given way to being perfectly imperfect.
There’s so much more room in there to just be and give up trying for an arbitrary standard that doesn’t serve us anymore. A bonus in this changed attitude is that we’re no longer holding anyone else to being perfect either.
It feels delicious to not only let go of my own mess-ups but also those of the friends, family, and even vendors who lack perfection on any given day. This letting go of the need for others to be perfect has released a lot of anger and anxiety too.
Perfection is a kind of death
Pema Chodron likens perfection to death. When we try to do everything perfectly and be perfect in the process (meditate enough, work out, eat a perfect diet), we’re aiming for security or protection and rejoicing in our ability to control our world in order to feel whole and self-contained … and perfect. In this scenario, however, there is no room for life-sustaining air to come in and mess with our efforts. Thus, we are killing that moment by working so hard to control our experience.
When we can’t control our world, like in times of illness and even death of a loved one, we feel like a failure and out of control. We failed because we aren’t perfect, and that feeling of failure piled on top of any trauma or dissatisfaction is a double whammy.
To live life fully, we must be willing to experience those times where our imperfections may shine.
We only benefit from a richer life with what we look like, how prepared we are, or how much experience we lack comes secondarily to living the moment to its fullest, whatever it is.
Don’t miss out on a lot of life’s special moments because you’re not willing to look bad or even fail in the process. I guarantee you won’t be alone.
Three cheers to being perfectly imperfect!