Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Why my (and perhaps your) search for perfect always fails...


Not too long ago I had a conversation with a colleague of mine in connection with a few questions I had regarding work. She said something to me that was like turning on the light inside me: "It seems as if you are trying to manage everything at once. You can´t. You have to give it about three years!" 
And I knew she was right. I was trying to get a hang of everything - straight away, when it was in fact an impossible task. 

Not just that. I became aware that it was how I was trying to live my life too, in all aspects, as a mum, as a wife, as a fellow human being... We have so many roles as a human and I was really trying to get everything done, and everything done right. At once. 

Striving for perfection becomes a terrible ordeal when you don´t realise it is impossible to obtain. 

If my goal is to jump to the moon, but I only manage to jump a few feet, it would feel like a terrible failure! But... if it is possible for us to see that it is utterly IMPOSSIBLE to jump all the way to the moon, a few feet is quite alright and you can feel ok about what you have done. 

And that is the world I am now introducing myself to: seeing my limits. One should think that it would be a negative thing, but on the contrary, it opens my eyes to the reality of what I can do, and compare my accomplishments to that instead. That makes it possible to be so much  more content and happy with oneself. If I can´t jump to the moon, there is no point in being sad for not making it! 

In addition to that, it is important to accept that all we can do, is not obtainable either. Life consists of so many variables that affect us, and so many considerations - it is important to look further than the tip of our nose. 

Sometimes, a 30% effort IS 100%. And then we have to be content with that. 


"It would be very quiet in the forest
if nobody sang
but the birds who sang the best"
- unknown

To me that means that we all, no matter what we are able to do or not, are a very important part of that puzzle which is life. We don´t have to be perfect, so why die trying? 

Wishing you a great - and unperfected - day!



Katinka



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