Perfection is a myth

Suzanne's imperfect world map shower curtain

Life, yourself, your spouse, your child is perfectly imperfect. Why do we expect everyone, including ourselves, to be perfect when the journey of life is imperfect?

This was my deep thinking as I tried to shove our comforter into the comforter cover, I had washed on Monday. I hate washing the comforter cover because it’s such a pain to put it back on. Somehow once it’s washed the comforter also seems to no longer fit inside it, there are lumps everywhere and our bed looks like chunky peanut butter when you attempt to spread it on white bread (and the white bread tears as you spread the peanut butter).

I thought about the last week with Mom moving in, Jackie’s birthday party, the 2^nd anniversary of my stroke approaching and how imperfect/unpredictable our life journey can be. I have required a fair amount of perfection from myself over the years, including trying to be perfect while recovering from a stroke. In the midst of fighting to get my disability after being discharged from the hospital, I thought I needed to send thank you cards to each person that sent something. Thankfully, a good friend (Susan- people are talking about it), reminded me that it was not the time to critique myself and to accept help! Since life is far from perfect, why do I need to be perfect? Why would I require perfection from those around me?

Since December 2023, I have told a lot of people to not let perfect be the enemy of good. I have tried to reduce my near-constant analysis paralysis in preparing things for work and horseback riding. Honestly, launching my blog and writing something every week never would have occurred prior to December 2023. I ‘never would have had the time’ to write and I would have over analyzed every word to the point of never actually putting something out there.

As I was preparing this entry this week, I took a riding lesson and for the first time in 5 years I fell off. Senator and I are totally fine, but my ego is a bit bruised. There are a lot of things I should/could have done to stay on my horse at that moment, which I fixated on for a few hours today (once again requiring perfection of myself). After I fell, all I wanted to do was cry. But instead of crying, I got back on and tried the jump again, and again, and again. All 3 attempts went well, I didn’t fall off, Senator didn’t spook. I continue to learn and grow from my imperfect life.

I added a new evening intention to give myself grace and perhaps letting go of perfection is the penultimate way to give myself grace.

To the people out there chasing perfection- stop! To the people out there who think they have achieved perfection- stop! Perfection is a myth. All any of us can do is learn and grow from the imperfections and give ourselves some grace.