Perfect

Being perfect is hard work.

Being perfect often stops us in our tracks.

Case in point, I did not walk until I was 15 months old. One day my mother took me into a shoe store. I was outfitted with a pair of shoes and stood up and walked out of the store. Prior to that point I had just pushed myself around on my tummy and refused to attempt to walk.

And the back story to that is: a  very early childhood memory of practicing walking in my crib and the chant in my head was “I have to do it right”. Where on earth I got the idea that I needed to do it right is beyond me. And of course doing it right is code for being perfect.

If you look around you can find perfect getting in the way of almost any activity.

• The writer who doesn’t write because it won’t be perfect.
• The embroiderer who refuses to stitch or show her stitching because it has mistakes and thus is not perfect. I cannot tell you the number of posts I see in my FaceBook groups of women posting amazing work and apologizing for the mistakes. The only person who really see the mistakes is the stitcher, the rest of us just admire.
• The dieter who slightly falls off the wagon and then gorges herself because she made a mistake and now can’t diet perfectly.

To be frank, being perfect sucks. It is almost impossible to do and it sucks the joy out of life.

Striving to be perfect makes us reluctant to try anything new because we will make mistakes and thus are not perfect.

My best friend  had an ongoing battle with being perfect. It seemed to infect every area of her life and left her almost paralyzed. She began to see a therapist, recognizing that she was at a total impasse.

After a few sessions the therapist suggested she work at “being perfectly imperfect”. My friend came home laughing and the log jam began to move.

So, here’s todays challenge for you and for me: let’s just be perfectly imperfect. We will get more done and have some fun.

PS: this needlework picture is not perfect and I’m enjoying working on it anyway.