The Pursuit of Imperfection: A Reality Check for Life

Perfection, a universal human desire

Perfection in a simple sense is “Completed”. For example, A perfect driver means the one who can drive without any issues or accidents irrespective of the involvement of the external factors. A quite high state to achieve, isn’t it? Indeed. Perfection is very rare and not so commonly found. No matter how many pseudo perfectionists say otherwise. People dedicate their whole life to doing something, learn something like astrophysics per say. We rarely hear a person is a perfect astrophysicist. Still in our hearts we want to be perfect in almost every aspect of our life. A tall order to achieve, irony is that once we become perfect there in nothing else to achieve!

Beauty lies in Imperfections

Japanese have been considered as a Happy, motivated group of people. One of the gifts they provided to the world out of many is a term called “Wabi-Sabi”… Core meaning of this word is – to find the beauty that lies in the impermanence and imperfections of things and people. Imperfection is one value found in most living beings on this world. Imperfection in my definition means there is scope for improvement that is accepted whole heartedly. We can have a goal of improving the skills, abilities and behavior each passing day to lead the life with full of beautiful memories.

Battle of Desire and Reality

On one hand people want perfection and on the other they know they are imperfect. This is also a classic case of desiring for something we are not. If we become perfect, then this search ends within us and causes the feeling that there is nothing worth living for. We all want to have good things and people around us, like awesome relationships, nice friends, caring family etc. Interesting point is when one person itself is not perfect how would the group of people will be. Definitely not perfect. That is where reality strikes, some people don’t realize it until it is too late. Being in a world created by our own expectations is fun to live in but it is not real.

How to Accept Reality in terms of Imperfections.

Imperfections are everywhere and cannot be avoided – This is true in any corner of the world. All we can do is either accept or agonize over the things that are not in our control. Like how we take salt with food perhaps we can live in the fantasy world created by us so that our overall morale jumps up for some time. But do not be fooled we are not going anywhere if we do not accept the imperfect reality. Which kid wants parents to be divorced (No one), however if the parents are miserable together as a bunch, then it does not last. Kid doesn’t have any option to accept the reality at the earliest or the life will be very cruel. Similarly, no one wants to declare bankruptcy but if the situation demands we must go through that phase even though all earlier planning was to create a healthy sum.

Below are some points we can be aware of

Define the command-and-control zone: This is the zone where you have closer to 100% of command and control, for example, when and how much mobile should be used (OfCourse other than work purposes).

Limit thinking about the things or events which are outside of the command-and-control zone: This means when you go to work, travel takes more time because of environmental conditions like rain, wind, heat or vehicular breakdown etc. Do not fret over missing something when things do not go your way.

Plan for things ahead of time from many angles: This helps us to have some influence above and beyond command-and-control zone to some extent. Leaving early to work and having some spare time definitely eases the tension and anxiety about missing some important meeting. But it does not eliminate it completely.

Feel and express: Sometime just talking about something makes one feel light and expressing stuff even about trivial matters help in long way. In the age of AI (Artificial Intelligence) feelings and expressions what makes imperfect humans stay humans. Wear it like a badge of honor and express your feelings to someone who cares. Does not necessarily have to be your family, friends or coworkers. Even absolute strangers can act as companions for short duration where you can talk about topics that are general and affect everyone as a whole. Like politics, health, technology etc.

Repair and Reconcile: Life is short, do things you like and do not worry about future. Try to meditate and breathe when uncertain events and matters bombard. We do not have to carry some grudge to our graves, in the end it does not matter. Reconcile and repair relations with those people who also want to do the same. Do not do this where there is no respect! It is like feeding many variables in an equation to figure out what is the value of X?

Closing Notes

As I said in the beginning, majority is imperfect. By the virtue of which we share so many things which are imperfect like a difficult relationship, careless friends, unromantic partner etc. Everyone gets scared of something, even though that something is different imperfection is that we all are scared and that is OK. Who has never had a broken heart (no one), we share that imperfection. All these imperfections are beautiful if we look with a proper Lense. We all have secrets that we don’t share with everyone, Secrets may be different for sure, but the imperfection is that we have secrets.

We can benefit from trying to condition our mind in such a way that if something happens which is outside of our control then we can take a deep breath and pray to God that give me strength to go through with this uncertain imperfection. Can be a health issue, relationship issue, financial issue – does not matter if we have the right mindset and ability to see the beauty in the imperfections.

Thank you – Until I write again, take care