I began meditating 20 years ago to fix my imperfections. Of course, meditation didn’t go smoothly or perfectly, so I felt even more damaged and imperfect. Not a pleasant place to be – the very tool to make me feel good about myself was making me feel worse.
Over these years of struggle, meditation worked its magic because I began to relax and accept imperfect meditations. (Of course, I still don’t know what a perfect one is.) And then, I gradually began to accept that I, me, and mine will also never be perfect … no matter how hard I tried or what I did.
You see, being human and being perfect remain contradictory, incompatible, and impossible. Somewhere along the way, I got tired of banging my head against a brick wall – or clutching at air. And just let go. Ah, what freedom to know that perfection was out of reach.
What relief to know that I no longer had to strive for something that left me feeling inadequate.
Just as I don’t expect to jump over my house because of gravity, I no longer expect to be “perfect” because there is no such thing as perfection. Just ask two chefs discussing the same risotto or two critics describing the same movie.
Nowhere have I found the ultimate and universally agreed upon definition of perfection.
How wonderful to feel OK just as I am. And this journey began with learning how to accept each meditation just as it occurred. Wanting to change nothing.
Does this mean that I’ve stopped working to improve myself?
Of course not. Life offers me thousands of ways to make enhancements – I just don’t focus on some artificial perceptions of perfection. Moment-to-moment improvements become the goal and with each success celebrated.
I found another benefit to letting go of perfection, I no longer need to zero-in on my mistakes and faults – so that I must frantically fix them before anyone else notices them. Now, I focus on what I’m doing well, what’s succeeding, so that I can build on the positive and make them even stronger, consistent, more frequent, and more pervasive.
Amazingly, self-growth and self-progress speed along naturally expanding. Funny, giving up needing to be perfect has given me the confidence to feel perfect just as I am … right here, right now.
