Imperfect i.e. I am perfect. I’m not in the slightest trying to point out that imperfection is perfect or embrace imperfection in any manner whatsoever. Because honestly, imperfection doesn’t exist. Why am I saying so? I have bad teeth and more often than not, I don’t give a good first impression. And what is it if not imperfection, case of flaws. And all of us have a humongous list of it. Of all the things we aren’t proud, of what we didn’t get right.
Half of us feel like dying of guilt over it and the other half wants to shovel dirt over it so as to bury it forever.
Can we believe that we are perfect? We are good? We are lovable?
No, we are told. We are humans and we have flaws. We kill ourselves with the things we did wrong, over the feeling of worthlessness, over thinking that people we love would leave us as we are not ‘good enough’. We live in constant fear and anxiety of not being as I said ‘good enough’. We screw our relationships, not believing that the other person truly loves us for what we are. We screw our work just because we think we will.
And why is that? When a mere snowflake, a tree leaf is so perfect, then how can humans not be perfect?
How can anything be wrong with our own design then?
Embrace yourself- You are what you are. And you are what you want to be. Love yourself not for your achievements and not because others love you but just because you are you. A perfect person, because nothing made under the sun is imperfect.
Embrace what you think are your faults. Don’t get into a debate of righteousness or what ought-to be done. You think you get angry quickly? Do you think getting angry over the fact that you get angry would help? No. Even if you want to change what you are right now, first you need to embrace the way you are presently. If you keep on resisting yourself, how would you make the change you want in yourself?
Forgive yourself- Not for the fact that you are human bound to commit mistakes but because you cannot be at peace with the world if you are not at peace with yourself.
Your life is yours- never say that your life sucks. Your life is not a neighbor you are bitching about. But it is you. And so if your life sucks, it’s pretty much because you aren’t paying any attention to it.
If you can’t love yourself, you will never be happy with the love you receive from others, because either you would think you are not worthy of it or it’s not sufficient for you nor would you be able to bring any change you want to bring in yourself as you resist what you are at present.
As Steve Maraboli said in Unapologetically You, “Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Be true to yourself. How you treat yourself sets the standard for how others will treat you.”
Image Courtesy: www.flickr.com/photos/thelotuscarroll
