Are We Addicted To The Pursuit Of Perfection?

Quite a waste of time, isn't it?

Just consider all the collective moments in our lives that we've used to try and be perfect. Perfect for whom? Perfect for what? All those hours, days and perhaps years didn't make us feel any better, or did they?

Most of us have something interesting in the back of our cupboards and yesterday I was digging around in ours and found a book that spoke to me. Either a book grabs you or it doesn't and luckily I started to read this one.

Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Naomi Remen.

Kitchen Table Wisdom 10th Anniversary: Stories That Heal

One of her anecdotes was about the time we waste trying to achieve perfection. We do it because it sort of seems the thing to do or because our parents taught us to try and be perfect. Consumerism has at its base, the pursuit of perfection.

It can become an never ending task and there will always be the next best thing to have in order to seem perfect. We ( especially women ) have a habit of spending decades within the confines of a dieting habit ( hell ) to lose a few pounds. If at the beginning of that road of dieting torture someone pulls you aside and tells you:

" Look, those 5 pounds you want to lose, are still going to be there in 10 years time. Why not accept them as part of you now and save yourself the torturous walk down this never ending road? Why don't you rather have a decade of bliss, internal bliss?"

One of my personal torturous paths is that wobbly cobble stoned one to a clean house. Clean by whose standards? Let me point out straight away, that our house is not perfectly tidy nor could you eat off our floor. Well, only a deranged person would eat off a floor in any case. And luckily my family and friends are neither!

Reading this chapter yesterday brought home to me the amount of time I have wasted worrying about cleaning. I could have had fun doing other mentally interesting stuff. Reading, meditating or just hanging out with myself and feeling good about myself the way I am and the way our house looks...

Instead of perfecting often imaginary flaws about ourselves, we would have a much better life if we were to count, adore and like what we are.

Biggi