Perfection or acceptance?

For me, aiming for perfection can be a bit of a prison, and I suggest you “love it or leave it” either way, it’s probably not serving you well to be trapped in it.

There is nothing “external” in life that we have to live up to, so if we detach from these false concepts of perfection and stop trying to measure ourselves against these yardsticks defined by others (magazines, marketing, news, school, films, colleagues…) – our lives will look totally different.

Perhaps we would find more peace and contentment and just be calm and happy in each moment, not having to control the outcomes and having the neediness to “be right” or “look the best” or “be the.. fastest, richest, tallest, funniest, prettiest…..” How nice would it be to not have to worry about what others think or what others say?

More importantly, how would it feel to stop judging ourselves and demanding that others live up to our ideas of perfection?

It is important to realise that we have taken the idea of perfection, and we (unknowingly) use it as an emotional weapon against ourselves because it seems like madness to try and live up to false ideas of perfection that society has programmed us to accept and buy into.

Earning big money is nice; however, will you be perfect if you have it? If you drive a Mercedes rather than a Skoda, will you be perfect? Those things are nice from a certain perspective, but they can’t make us a better or a worse person – that’s only self-worth talking.

Self-respect, self-worth and self-love come from accepting that we are perfect just the way we are (warts and all) and whatever we have in life. We are perfect even though we have made mistakes in the past, even though we may have hurt others, even though we may be small, tall, skinny, fat, bald, hairy, fast, slow……….

The truth is, we humans (should we wish) have free will and choice, we can decide to NOT take things personally, we can decide to expand our consciousness, we can decide to move to a place of integrity, self-acceptance and forgiveness for ourselves and others.

When we choose these ways of being, we are expressing our true nature, and, to me, that’s true perfection.

It is surprisingly easy to move to a more accepting frame of mind once you understand where and how emotions are formed and are taught how to look at life through a new lens.