Even though we have grown up hearing that "no body's perfect," (and I don't mean the Hannah Montana song) many people today strive for perfection. While some people just try to perfect a few aspects of their lives, there are some, including myself, who want to perfect their whole life. I have always tried my hardest to have a perfect appearance, hair, grades, behavior, and personality. I can honestly say that my perfectionism is a huge cause of my eating disorder and a focus in countless therapy sessions. It isn't a mystery why we want perfection, our society is constantly rewarding good performance. For example, you pay to see a perfect play, the best audition gets the part, you pay for the perfect song, you expect the perfect starbucks frappuccino, the perfect speller wins the bee, the perfect student gets the scholarship, and the perfect model gets the magazine cover. We even try to be perfect by hiding away all of our problems and emotions. Perfection is like a moving target, no matter how many times you aim and shoot, you can never hit it. So we might as well embrace our imperfection, as they are a part of being a human. Obviously the strive for perfection is never good on our mental and physical health, so why don't we try to be less perfect? I don't mean you need to start failing at everything, but just to try your best at things, and not let it stress you out. We don't always need to spend all of our time worrying about how we can be better at things, we can spend more of our time enjoying the things we love. I assume the option of less worrying and more happiness sounds more appealing, so why don't you try it? It's pretty hard to be happy when you can never be as good as you want, but it is much easier to be happy when you are loving yourself for what you can do and your flaws.
"The thing that is really hard, and really amazing is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself."
You hit the nail on the head!
ReplyDelete