How to Be Perfect

One day I got fooled by this theme. At first my topic was a little bit different. But the best thing is that I came up with the new answer. For a very long time, I believed and said that imperfection is the true beauty. So when I began to write about it, by the end of it, I had an “A-HA” moment. Suddenly I understood that I was completely wrong. And I have to share this with you.

So how did this happen? How could I fool myself? I truly believed that there is no space for criticism because every one of us is different and not one of us is perfect, and that's the beauty of it. I mean: “nobody is perfect,” that was what I used to say.

When I was a little girl, I had the best art teacher. She was always telling us that lines are not supposed to be straight all the time, and there are no mistakes while drawing. By saying it, she took out all of the tension, and we could simply draw and enjoy it. When I showed my drawings to my dad (which is a pedant), he would ask me: “is this symmetrical?” I would say no, and then I would think: “that’s the whole point…” And maybe that was the foundation of my mistaken perception about perfection.

Being perfect is a task that we all want to accomplish. We want to get best grades, we want to have a lot of friends, we want to access best universities, we want to have best (highest income) jobs, we want to have perfect family in a perfect house, we want a perfect car, we want to raise our kids perfectly. And after a while we want to give them perfect advice for them to have the same perfect life. And we all truly believe that this is the way to be happy. What is funny is that the word “happy” wasn’t even mentioned in the last sentence. My dad would be very pleased that I would live my life like this. And I do not blame, and I do not judge him for thinking that way… Many of us think that way because we were raised to think this way. But it was not us who invented this idea. Our ancient education invented this idea. Everything is changing very fast, but the education is the same as my parents or even grandparents had. And the world then was very different from now. Then it’s the society which still believes in that “perfect life” and criticises everyone who is thinking outside of the box. The political system also has not changed for a very long time. Let’s be honest, politics are not very interested in people’s struggle. Let’s not forget the media, television, radio and so on… They are showing us every day, every minute, every second how every person should look like, walk and talk like. No wonder that after all this we have a terrible belief system that is a lie. It gives an idea that we need to be perfect to be happy.

We, all the people of the world, have one thing in common—we want to be happy. It is our main goal in life. So the environment tells us that we need to be perfect and we live our lives seeking that perfection. And everything would be great if at the end everyone would be happy. So the question is, are we happy? Obviously, there are already those who have all the needed ingredients to happy life, (good job, high income, perfect family in a perfect house with a perfect dog) but are they happy? What about the ones who are on their way to “happiness” (children in school, college students, unmarried ones)? They haven’t crossed the finish line yet, so are they unhappy? Well, they could use it as an excuse for not being all rainbows and butterflies.

Times has never been better, we have it all, we can do anything we want, and yet people have never been more depressed. So I guess the rule about perfect life is not so perfect after all. Shouldn't we stop? Absolutely. Of course, it’s a little bit tricky… Even if we want to stop and change the way we live we don’t know how cause nobody told or shown us. Then desperation comes. Then the addictions come, and there is a large variety of those nowadays. And then only the lucky ones have crises, rock bottoms, or some big life traumas. Because that is when something clicks inside of us and suddenly we can see like we are in the center of a tornado —the tornado eye. Suddenly we see all the external chaos, and at the same time, we feel grounded and at peace with ourselves. We watch that moving clutter all around us like a movie of our lives and at that moment we know what to do to get out of there.

So the illusion of a perfect life collapses. We don’t need that anymore; we just want to live. We don’t need others to tell us what to do; we do not care what others think about us because the most important thing is what we think of ourselves. And nobody knows best what we want but us. At this point in our lives, we trust ourselves and understand that everything we needed was inside of us all the time. People can change their environment as much as they want they can change their bodies as much as they like but these actions will never fix the problems that are stuck inside of us. And those problems were invented by the illusion of the perfect life.

Nobody is perfect… I disagree! Imagine a baby who is just brought to daylight. Do you think that this little piece of two people, this innocent and pure living being who was created from cell to cell for nine months, is not perfect? You know the answer. And you know that you were that baby and you were perfect. So what changed? A lot, right? But if you were born perfect, then why do you need to be perfect when you already are? You don’t. You’re perfect just the way you are, and that’s the beauty of it. Everybody is perfect in their own way because we all are very different. As babies, we know that we are perfect, so we do everything perfectly. We stand up and fall as many times as we need to get up and make some serious steps. Then we began to walk, after that we began to run. Not once do we think that we can’t do it. As little children we enjoy learning new things, we draw because we like to, we sing because we like to, we dance because we like to very much. There is no hesitation in a little child's face that maybe he’s not good at dancing or singing… Or what will others think? No doubt, he or she is just enjoying the moment. But then parenting happens, then school and then society happens, and in a second we forget who we are. And yes we change as we grow up, but we change regarding do we believe in ourselves or, do we believe what others are saying about us. So I’m very sorry, but we don’t need any rules to be perfect, we don’t need to be that person because we already are. And if we won’t remember who we truly are—we will never be happy.