The Blessings of Infinite Imperfection
"May the sun
bring you new energy by day, May the moon softly restore you by night,
May the rain wash away your worries,
May the breeze blow new strength into your being,
May you walk gently through the world and
know it's beauty all the days of your life."
— Apache Blessing
The older I get the more I see the
cyclical nature of life. It seems that everyone, myself included, tends to
either be on an upswing or a downward spiral—the rate of change is not uniform
for everyone, but nobody stays in the same place—physically, emotionally, or
spiritually. The cycle is in the patterns of behavior and consequence that
induce us to change the direction of our changing.
At first examination, it would seem that whether a
person is doing well or doing poorly is correlated to how “in control” they are
of their life. Those who are kicking life’s ass are seemingly the disciplined
ones, the adaptable people, and the people with a plan. When you compare an
Olympic class athlete to, say, someone days away from an overdose or
self-destructive act, the argument that the Olympian has more self-control is
absolutely true. But is self-control the same thing as life-control? And is the
Olympic athlete really in absolute, perfect self-control in the first place?
No, and no—the athlete simply has more
discipline than the addict—it’s relative.
In fact, scrutinize the life and habits of any
highly-functioning Olympian and there are plenty of imperfections, behavioral
problems, and restraint issues, because they’re homo sapiens and as such will never be perfect. Maybe it’s
performance enhancing drugs that aren’t allowed (although the negative morality
of those drugs is nebulous in my opinion), or perhaps they’re not good at
expressing positively to others, like spouses or family members. It doesn’t
really matter, the point is that every person has things about themselves
they’d change if they could, or are trying to change, or are letting get worse.
Sometimes you reach a place in the cycle of life
where it had seemed you were doing very well, things were getting better, and
you were changing—getting stronger in some way. Then one day you can’t do the
thing you had been doing to get better. For whatever reason, you backslide,
maybe nothing much at first or maybe something big, doesn’t matter. You find
yourself lower than you want to be, than you thought, had hoped, you were. This
can seem like a terrible, disheartening development. From this point you can
either allow that discouragement to pull you further down (lengthening the
amount of catching up you’ll do later) or you can remember you’re not perfect,
and forgive yourself for your mistake. Let new energy come into your awareness,
change the shame or disappointment you feel into fuel to motivate your resolve
towards the upward climb of life, not the sliding downward out of control.
Remember that self-control isn’t life control and that both are impossible, but
self-control can at least be practiced at. Remember that if you never felt
uncomfortably hot, then the fall breeze on your skin wouldn’t feel so
refreshing. But if you continue walking with your head held low, you’ll miss
seeing all the beauty of the world around you.
So celebrate the infinite imperfection that is
you—it’s wonderful to know that no matter what, you can always be better.
