Perfection vs. Imperfection
I am just vomiting the thoughts in my head on this blank sheet, without filtering and/or editing them.
Since some days I have been obsessing about being perfect. I seeked perfection in everyway, till I realised that one cannot achieve that. Perfection is fine but it is our imperfections that define us. You don’t know yourself unless and until you know your imperfections. It is a bit similar to the concept that you cannot be truely fearless unless you have known fear. A person who hasn’t felt fear and does not know its meaning is just another person. To be truely fearless you have to rise above your fears.
Similarly, no one is perfect and trying to achive it is putting tremendous amount of strain over yourself.
“In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism.” Hannah Arendt
I cannot be too hard on myself. My imperfections are the essence of my being, they are my blessings. As I said in the secon para, they define me for what I am. My friends do not love me because I am perfect in some way or the other, they do because of my imperfections. The imperfections make one closer to perfection but if you seek perfection you are bound to get farther and farther away from it.
In the end I leave you with this chinese proverb:
“A diamond with a flaw is worth more than a pebble without imperfections”
It is rightly said that “No one is perfect… that’s why pencils have erasers” . And what is the fun in living if everything becomes perfect. The very motivation to live comes from the fact that there is room for innovation and improvement. There is constantly something that you can strive for and look forward to. That is what makes life worth living.
As said by Henry van Dyke, “Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best”