Laura's right, and Tiger I'm sure you are perfect.
You know my little 6 year old friend (who, btw, has his own definition of the perfect chocolate chip cookie- one that entails mostly "the more the better")? He's a regular little guy with his own personality- passionate as can be, head-strong, loves math and lego, doesn't love writing lower case letters, votes yes on chocolate chip cookies and no on spinach...
He's had his share of grumpy moods, his lower case a's are really atrocious (even he says so), he's thrown up on me a few times when he's had the flu, and he's forgotten to say thank you also. AND, he's perfect. Absolutely perfect.
He has a little friend who has a very different personality- high-strung, precocious in school, likes to try new foods, has a very loud cry when he's mad... and he's perfect also.
We can always try to improve the things we do (over the years I continually work to become a more skilled therapist, for instance). But that doesn't mean that we aren't already as good as we need to be to be good human beings. The definition of a perfect human being isn't a body shape or size, it isn't a clothing style or haircut, it isn't lots of college degrees or no college degrees, it isn't what you ate or didn't eat today. It doesn't have anything to do with those things. It's about who we really are. My little 6 year old friend couldn't be more different than his little 6 year old friend. And they are both perfect, just as they are. There's no objective standard for "human perfection"
So stop driving yourselves cray trying to attain it!! All that trying to be "the perfect human being" does is exhaust people, make them depressed and anxious and hopeless and powerless feeling. There's nothing good or valuable that comes from the effort. Really, no good comes out of it.
I do understand the idea of trying to be perfect is seductive. That's because we get into thinking that if we can just be perfect we'll have everything figured out, that things will be constantly clear to us and we'll always know what to do, that we'll be safe and steady every minute in the world. As usual, trying to be perfect has meaning- you don't do it because it's fun! It's SO not fun. You do it because working toward that ideal gives you a structure, a goal, a plan for how to live. It's not easy to give up trying to be perfect. It's sure worth working on though.
:-) So there are many different kinds of "Perfect" should we say?
I guess your little friend is Perfect at being absolutely positively Himself. Perfectly human and Wonderful. Throw up and all.
Posted by: leanonme | November 21, 2009 at 08:10 PM
I truly struggle with my emotions, I almost never am able to identify them. This post definitely stirred my emotions. Tears filled my eyes. I want to be okay, better than okay, I want to be happy being myself. It is really hard for me to keep track of myself, I seem to get lost an awful lot. It gets hard for me too, when I feel like people don't want anything to do with me when I'm myself. That's probably an entirely different issue though.
I listen a lot to the Johnny Diaz song "A more beautiful you" it basically says what you said Johanna. There can never be a more perfect you. He says a more beautiful you, but its like the same thing. I take it to mean that we were made to be unique and different from everyone around us. And that means that no one else would be better at being Johanna than Johanna, or Laura than Laura or me than me. We're all perfect when we're ourselves. If that makes since, that's how I took what you said Johanna. Is that right?
Posted by: Ann | November 21, 2009 at 08:29 PM
Ha! What a funny thought. My mom would have a field day with that one. She would cringe. I can see it now. She would actually get angry and say: Of course when you are barfing on your mother you are not perfect. Or when you are being bad or whatever. You are just not perfect.
I think I've mentioned before that my parents actually told me that I couldn't be anything I wanted to be. I come from a very literal family. [I mean they had a reason to worry, I wanted to be a dad when I grew up and I'm not a guy.]
The thing is my mom would say that when you show all of yourself, of course you are not perfect. But I get it. I want to be accepted just as I am and have that be perfectly alright to others. It's really hard though because the people around me (in my family) just don't do that. I guess I can keep working on accepting them for who they are and look around for people who can accept me.
Posted by: Courtney | November 21, 2009 at 10:06 PM
What started my drive for perfectionism in childhood was if I could be perfect I might be able to earn affirmation and love and keep my parents together...it is wierd how at the time it made me feel safer and more in control and powerful...I don't know when it actually turned to trying to keep the perfect diet and eat perfectly...but it did. Perfectionism got so out of control and was miserable. Living in the fuzzy(gray)...not in the black or the white all the time at first is scary especially with food...but I know its freeing. Johanna...sounds like you have some pretty cool friends. :)
Posted by: wendy | November 21, 2009 at 10:50 PM
Courtney, I wanted to be a dad when I grew up too! (Really, I just wanted to tell the bedtime stories and play soccer outside with kids and, since my dad did that for me, I figured you had to be a dad to get to tell bedtime stories and play soccer with kids.)
My sister wanted to be the tooth fairy.
My brother wanted to be a horse. (And, interestingly, I wanted to name my brother "horse" before he was born. So maybe he really was meant to be a horse.... )
lol!!!!!
Posted by: Laura | November 22, 2009 at 01:04 AM
What about when you don't think you are perfect but feel like everyone else thinks you're perfect so you always have to pretend that everything is "fine" all of the time?
Posted by: PTC | November 22, 2009 at 05:27 AM
PTC, I second that experience/question!!!!!
Posted by: Laura | November 22, 2009 at 07:58 AM
i really like the title, "yep."
Posted by: Super Egg | November 22, 2009 at 06:53 PM
Great Question PTC...
Posted by: leanonme | November 22, 2009 at 09:43 PM
hey ptc i have been thinking about your question. i am sure johanna will have the best answer, but i had a few thoughts of my own. i have plenty of relationships where i show up as that person's perfect chocolate chip cookie. i think everyone in this community is good at doing that. but lately i have been doing some fooling around with this concept. the results are kind of interesting. in the relationships that are strong and healthy, people still loved me for maybe being a peanut butter cookie or an oatmeal cookie (even if that was not their favorite cookie). and in the relationships that are not healthy, people could only hold me as their favorite cookie. so in those relationships, we cannot be as close, or experience the complete possiblities of the relationship.
Posted by: Super Egg | November 23, 2009 at 09:14 AM