Sherry

.... on Living and Loving
2003-03-23 22:20:02 (UTC)

Lack of Perfection... abundance of reality

In no area of our lives do we experience perfection. It
simply doesn’t exist, except as a mental image we carry
around with us of our ideal situation, relationship, job,
or whatever. Sometimes we achieve good enough or even
excellent results from our efforts, but we never achieve
perfection.We all know this. We have a lifetime of
experience proving that perfection doesn’t exist at any
place or time in this world. Nonetheless, we often think
and act as if it could. We may avoid trying things that we
expect to bring us only moderate success or unavoidable
setbacks. We may be unable to enjoy our real accomplishment
because in our fantasies, we could always have done better
somehow. We may give up on ourselves, other people,
relationships, jobs, hobbies, and objects as soon as their
imperfections begin to appear. We may live in constant
fear because, ultimately, nothing turns out to be exactly
as we’d wish.As long as our sense of self-esteem and
happiness rest on unattainable ideas, we can never find
true happiness. Accepting the reality of imperfection
doesn’t mean you are giving up. It doesn’t mean giving up
our dreams or imagination. It isn’t hopeless resignation,
resentful cynicism, or grudging tolerance. It’s respecting,
enjoying, and loving ourselves, others, and life – here and
now.When we accept imperfection in ourselves, others, and
life, we discover a joyous freedom from the inevitable
disappointment of our unrealistic expectations. We make the
happy discovery that, we don’t need to have everything go
our way. We awaken to the wonderful realization that life,
love, people, work, things, and situations can be great –
without being totally flawless. We let go of the things we
can’t control and learn to work toward excellence rather
than perfection. We release our fantasies of what will
never be, growing to accept and truly enjoy all that is.




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