Stop worrying about being perfect. Be human.
Stop worrying about being perfect. Be human.
I’ll let that sit with you for a second. Shoot, take five more seconds. Read it over and over… then, over again. Look at each word.
Stop. Literally, take one breath. See, no, feel, the word; cease what you are doing. Give yourself an opportunity to not take one more step toward your to-do list. Turn off the automatic pattern of taking the meaning of a word that we use every day for granted. Say it. “Stop.” How powerful is it to allow yourself to feel the consonant on the lips and the vibration of the air as it leaves your mouth? Allow yourself to feel the pausing effect of the breath that follows it. You’re free now to intentionally take your next step. Don’t be freaked out if it’s in a direction that you totally didn’t see coming. That’s the beauty of living in the now. You see paths available to you that you didn’t see previously.
Worrying. Seriously, have you seen what worry does to your face? The weight of worry tugs at the skin, anchors the eyes, and drags the head into the burrows of the heart, where everything gets totally mixed up. Where the lens is so blurry with fear that our reality becomes a heavy concrete block- one that blocks out so much light that we can’t even see the tools that are lost in its shadow. If you’re here, STOP. Tell a friend, and let them help you shine a light to locate just one tool. Then use that tool to chip away… chip, chip, chip, and don’t give up because the more you chip the more the light comes in, and you see another tool, and another tool, and another tool, so many that you might as well open up your own damn hardware store to share your tools with the public. But, please do us all a favor, don’t charge people for your tools. Give them freely.
About. It’s just a word. More, specifically, it’s just a preposition—a word in the English language that modifies the action that comes after it. But, is it really? Isn’t it more? Doesn’t “about” really mean “to connect,” and in this sentence, if its purpose is to connect the action of worrying with the other action of being, is that a state of consciousness that you would freely choose to enter? You can choose not to, if you take a pause. Better yet, if you… stop.
Being. On its own, being is simply that—being. But there’s an implication of confinement in this form of the word that stems from a passive action. The actor who is “being” may not truly be in control; few conscious choices are made when we are “being.” Webster’s defines it as “the fact of existing.” Well, where’s the autonomy in that? Of course, it’s used as a gerund (I think that’s grammatically correct) in this sentence, and if it’s a gerund, isn’t the present participle of the word used as a noun? When we use “being” as a noun, are we not talking about a living, thinking creature? And if we are, then I’d like to choose my own actions; take my own steps; use my own tools; express my own freedom.
Perfect. Oh my word. Do I even want to go here? Maybe, I’ll just start with the definition—“complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement.” Not gonna lie, when my girls were born, all I could see was something so perfect, so innocent, never needing improvement. But I’m sure thankful that at ages three and four, they grow every day not just in body but in mind; they improve every day and not always in every way, but their experiences allow their existence to have more meaning. If we allow ourselves the opportunity to get out of our own way, we can improve each day as rapidly as a child. We do not need to set a limit upon ourselves. In other words, our range of improvement is quite literally ad infinitum. It’s not just that we’re on a journey of improvement; it’s that we are the journey. Nietzsche would say -we are the “passage” itself. I’m not ready for that journey to end. Every day it just gets better if we stay in it… not on it.
Be. Without going back to that whole diatribe about grammar, let’s pick up where we left off. Let’s BE. Let’s take action. Let’s choose what action we take. Let’s intentionally take a step after we pause. Let’s purposefully use our tools (yoga, meditation, self-inquiry, faith, just to name a few). Let’s find freedom. And when we do, let’s be free of suffering. Let’s actively bring ourselves to a place of lightness in space and in vision. And when we feel as if we lose control, fall off kilter, cast yourself into shade, if we come back to an active, instead of passive, perspective- we stop; we be; we free.
Human. We are asymmetrical complex individuals that live and breathe. But we do more—we think, we feel, we connect, we create, we suffer, we grow, we choose, and in each of one of those actions, we experience multiple layers and meanings that make us so individual that there is never another footprint just like ours. We have the power within us to cultivate a free will that shapes our existence. And so, each human is unique. My wish is for every human to experience freedom in physical space, but even more in spirit.
So, I challenge you to:
Stop worrying about being perfect. Be human.