Perfection Stifles Life
“We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that’s death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn’t have any fresh air. There’s no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience. Doing this is setting ourselves up for failure, because sooner or later, we’re going to have an experience we can’t control: our house is going to burn down, someone we love is going to die, we’re going to find out we have cancer, a brick is going to fall out of the sky and hit us on the head, somebody’s going to spill tomato juice all over our white suit, or we’re going to arrive at our favorite restaurant and discover that no one ordered produce and seven hundred people are coming for lunch.
The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100 percent healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience. There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride.
To be fully awake, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.”
~ Pema Chödrön
Stacey, you’re really making me think recently! Perfect really isn’t perfect. It’s all of our collective experiences that make us who we are. The rough spots in life make the grand moments even grander. I really like this thought. What it says to me is – go out and live! And really experience each moment of your life – this is a powerful concept. Thanks for sharing this today!
Lances last blog post..Sunday Thought For The Day
Love this.
Thank you for sharing this. I’ve come to see perfection as something that holds me back from achieving what I want. An excuse I use so I don’t have to face my fears. No more! I enjoy reading Pema, she has some very wise words to share.
@Lance – I agree that this quote does provide a really powerful concept. It is helping me be more fully awake during the up and the downs.
@Jennifer – Thanks for the feedback. Hope you find time to join more of our conversations.
@Stacey – Perfection used to hold me back from painting and writing…and now I have let go of not being perfect. I see typos on my blog a lot…it kills me…but I’m not letting my errors stop my flowing of writing. There is not much I can do if people don’t want to read my blog b/c I am a grammar disaster.
Very thought-provoking.
Since life IS so imperfect and uncontrollable, I wonder what makes us constantly seek perfection and control.
Vereds last blog post..Will You Tell Me A Little Bit About Yourself?
Thats a great post Stacey! I think in most cases we spend our time fighting what is. It seems we have set ourselves so many battles to fight. Coming to a place where we embrace ourselves is great because it is only then that we can begin to enjoy life. It gives us freedom to be who we are.
@Vered – Great question. Humans are a bizarre species.
@Rarestone – “Freedom to be who we are”…I love that!