Perfect Guilt

I am guilty and I must confess.

I’ve been indicted on grand charges of first-degree perfectionism. The truth is I am a very imaginative person and I want things to turn out as perfect as I have envisioned it, but quick reality check, I’m learning that “perfect” doesn’t exist. I read a post the other day that went something like “I just want a 4.0 GPA, 8 hours of sleep every night and money in my account.” I saw that and chuckled because ideally that’s what most of us all want. We want the “perfect” life, with a perfect body, partner, home, finances and social life. And to be completely honest I have fallen into this trap of wanting everything around me in a state of perfection.

If it’s one thing this year 2020 has taught me is that nothing goes as planned. I am learning that perfection just like her sister comparison who is the thief of joy, is the killer of happiness. Because we want our idealized vision, we work so hard to get it and forget that all the beauty and true fulfillment is in the now and not the romanticized dream.

Earlier this year as I was wrapping up my final semester of college, I was picturing and mapping out the “perfect” life post grad. My thought process was, well if I get this job, make this amount of money, get this car, this apartment and then go to grad school, I’ll be so accomplished and happy with myself. Unfortunately, these things don’t bring happiness. We get so caught up trying to attain this picture-perfect life, that we miss the joy in the journey. We all know social media further perpetuates the notion of perfectionism but I’m here to tell you that NONE of it is real.

We’ve missed out on so many opportunities because we were waiting on whatever it is, to be “perfect.” Some of us don’t post much because we feel like our post isn’t IG worthy aka “perfect” or some of us miss out on friendships and love because we have these expectations of the perfect friend or partner and we short change ourselves. As cliché as it may be, no one and nothing is perfect and that’s what makes us beautiful. Imagine if everything was truly impeccable, life would be lackluster.

The verdict is in and we have been found in favor of imperfection and sentenced to a lifetime of self-acceptance with a chance of parole, on the count of enjoying the here and now for what it is and not what we want it to be.