Imperfection is not the enemy; it's an illusion

​Perfectionism.
​It’s a backhanded compliment:
​
​
We half-curse/half-compliment
our perfectionism. 
​ 
​And then it backhands us.
(Like an abuser.)
(Which it is.)

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Imperfection. 
​Imperfection is okay, then.
​
It just means the we are human--right?
Of course. 
Yes.
​

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But we still don't want to be associated with the word:

I love you.  You're so imperfect.
I finished the job!.  I hope you think it’s imperfect because that’s what I was going for. 

​Nope.  Doesn't work.

Even John Legend's love song "All of Me," which celebrates the "perfect imperfection" of his love, sounds a bit off at first, and we sort of have to sink down into his meaning before we can stop ourselves from silently chastising him for even noticing, much less saying out loud, that his beloved has any imperfections.

The perfectness of the world, as it is, at each emerging moment 
is a mind-blowing truth every time we touch into it.  But the everyday mind doesn't like to be blown; it likes to understand.   So it works really hard:  labeling things and actions and even our own selves as good or bad. 

Thus imperfection becomes an enemy. 


Why does imperfection become an enemy?
The 1-Point of the Enneagram might help us respond to this question--because it represents the yearning sense we have for something very precious:  a paradise that we used to inhabit, a place and a time when everything was perfect. 

A sense, too, that we did something wrong, got kicked out of the Garden, and now we are enduring the excruciating pain of being cut off from Goodness itself.  And we will do anything to get back there:  work hard, do it right, make no mistakes, improve ourselves, improve our work, improve  our homes and children and pets. . .
 
Our sense of an unbearable fall from a world and a life that used to be perfect makes imperfection into an enemy.
​
But of course, it is not.

Imperfection ultimately does not even exist. 
Imperfection is simply a profoundly compelling illusion that traps us inside what Tolle calls psychological time:  a mind-created a sense of ourselves as stable, a sense of our lives as things that should not change without our express permission.  

When we say it in such stark terms, we see that the idea of doing it perfectly, doing it right . . .  is utterly futile. 



​Because "it" is already perfect.  
 We just don't perceive it as such in the flow of our daily busy-ness.
For it is our busy-ness, our daily-ness,  our holding on to past joys and hurts and our drilling into future plans and fears—this is what keeps the illusion of imperfection alive as an enemy to fight against.

Ultimately, then, no thing is imperfect. The unfoldment of matter and energy in time simply is what it is.

But most of the time, this truth is too slippery for us to grasp, and this is probably good.  Why?  Because as a concept (as opposed to a lived experience), the idea that everything is perfect is counterproductive at best and dangerously neglectful at worst.  (Think of Pangloss in Candide.)

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As a concept (as opposed to a lived experience), the idea that everything is perfect is counterproductive at best and dangerously neglectful at worst. ​

Perfection is never more and never less than the breath you are taking right now.

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​
​So what tools in our kit of mindful living might be useful when our experience of living feels constrictive, when things seem very strongly as if they ought to be different (and better!) than they are right now?
 
Here's a good one: 
Befriend reality. 
Befriend things are as they are. 
 
But  how do I befriend reality when it feels unacceptable? 

• Begin with the breath.
• Fill your heart with the love of a child or a parent or a caterpillar or a cactus.
• Invite a sense of softness, ease, compassion, space.
• Note a distant sound, and allow it to fill your ear.  Feel the vibration until all traces of the sound are truly gone.

These easeful befriending practices are powerful.  Because they shatter the illusion of imperfection and bring us face-to-face with the deepest reality:  that perfection is never more and never less than the breath you are taking right now.

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