Infinite Imperfection is Inevitable

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.