Perfectly Imperfect

Pursuit of perfection is the beautiful journey that we embark from the time of our birth. We are often reminded by the world around us on how imperfect we are. This starts with parents and adults reminding us as children on how we are the only laggards they had ever met. Every facet of life is often compared to other successful men and women who adorns the crown of perfection in their trade.

A boy who dreams of being a soccer player is often compared with Messi or Ronaldo. A cricket aspirant with Kohli or Bumrah. A musician with Mozart and so the list goes on and on as you can imagine. We grow up becoming a self critic who sees the imperfections in us like a painted canvas. We reflect harshly on ourself succumbing to the peer pressure and constant comparisons of this world. 

Sadly there is a big chunk of people who are so upset with their looks that they tend to overlook the fact that they lost a genetic lottery and it is nothing that they can do about it. Fortunately so the world of cosmetics and salons are so convincing that we start believing in changing how we look. The demand that Instagram and Facebook puts on our looks, the dopamine hit of those hearts flowing on our artificial pictures keeps us going. The harsh reality that having a balanced diet and combined with a sustainable exercise routine is what can make anybody look the best they can ever be is not something that appeals to many. 

Everyone wants to be rich. We are in constant search for shortcuts and falls prey to the Ponzi schemes of this beautiful world without shame. Many mortgage their future earnings in the dream of striking gold in their investments in the trailing years of life. The harsh reality that having a regular and continuous investment habit for longest time in life can help in creating monstrous wealth which doesn’t need you to add stress to your wonderful life. But we seem to be short of time when it comes to asset building and as in beauty is looking of overnight glow.

We go to a vegetable store, and would love to pick the perfect looking vegetable, we are in mobile store and want a screen guard for our mobile life partner(mobile). This need of perfection and the effort to maintain it,  in everything around us makes us forget that even the ugliest of vegetables has the same nutrients, the mobile screen guard protects it for sure but negates the quality output of the engineering marvel those gorillas are meant to be. The shirt we just got from a factory outlet was unsold for a year and tried by many in various stores and repacked. The imperfections that we try so hard to avoid is the world that fills outside and inside of us. Embracing it and working towards focusing on the right things that matter is an absolute reality.

Many of us punish ourselves for being imperfect in our job after years spent on mastering it. Many fail to be good at studies, many turn out to be terrible businessmen, many turn authors but struggle to write without an GenAI supporting them. Still we consider ourself always a finished product. We feel right from the manufacturing and until the final scrapping into the soil, we consider ourselves perfect and suggest the world around us to change for us. Right between being evidently complacent and overly concerning is where the pursuit of perfection lies.

In our mind, the perfection, habits, discipline, hard work, consistency, resilience, grit are all lined up in a straight line often one leading to other and finally ending with perfection. However in reality they are all lying around having cross linked to each other in countless combinations which ends one step short of perfection. Because perfection is never the end, it’s a motivation which keeps us going and honestly we should not get there until the last chapter is written in our book called life. Aiming for perfection is the bare minimum we should be trying for when we attempt anything but reaching there is not the goal but the journey towards it is life. 

Challenging your mind to the impossible is what makes it achieve the possible and create excellence. The fight to achieve it and not giving up is the grit that we need to build in our life. The effort needs sustainable practices which can be consistent without burning ourselves and make us perish. Believing in oneself is the first step that takes us there and allow us to be among the few who finally makes it big. Without effort and hard work, luck would look thin, blessings would fall short, and Gods would turn their faces. Whatever you do and however you do, do your best that the world around you would admire and remember you for it. Improve every day, and improve so much that you forget where you started. 

Imperfections makes us unique in ways that we can’t appreciate enough. But that is not an  excuse to give up on ourselves. Be patient in our own journeys and appreciate the little differences we all carry. Many times perfection is a perception that we all relate differently based on our experience and exposure in this otherwise imperfect world.

Gentle reminder - “Embrace the glorious mess that you are” - Unknown