The day perfection died

All my life I wanted to be the perfect blank. The perfect daughter, the perfect friend, the perfect student (this one is slightly debatable, I think it's fairer to say I simply wanted to have the best grades out of everyone). I wanted to be better than my peers at everything. Better at helping around the house. Better at cross stitching. Faster to learn how to ride a bike. Quieter when in close proximity to an adult (because adults loooove a child who knows how to be quiet). And every time I fell short it felt like a sharp sting. I wasn't as good as all those other kids (never mind they weren't perfect either!). I was disappointed in myself and I had let everyone down.

And here is the kicker: it wouldn't make one bit of difference how much I tried, I would ALWAYS fall short of perfect simply because perfect does not exist. And I have forced myself to live a life where all I do is chase a multitude of unattainable carrots at the end of a stick.

Even as an grown adult I still strive for perfect. And even if those rare moments when I did get there, I wouldn't trust that I did. That presentation was perfect, but how can I make it better next time? Dinner was spot on, but how can we make it tastier/faster to cook/cheaper/more exciting? It seems that in my search for perfect nothing, not even perfect would do.

So I ask: why did I keep doing it to myself over and over and over?

In light of this I am taking drastic measures. For the first time in my life I am erasing that word from my vocabulary. Perfect is deceased. It is no more. Not on my lips, and hopefully not in my thoughts either.

I am boycotting perfect.

From now on it's present over perfect for me (which incidentally in the name of the book I'm currently reading, and that helped solidify this new resolve, you can buy it here).

From now on I choose to be. As I am, flaws and all. Right here, right now. And I shall grow organically from this point with no (perfect) goal in sight. And I will be happy and content. And I will be there, wherever there is. I will be present. And isn't that better than perfect?

The life-saving art of being enough

I remember going to see Babe in cinemas. I was eight years old and it was my first grown up film (and by grown up I mean live action, not dubbed, in English and with subtitles). It felt like a rite of passage and a test to my budding reading skills.

The thing that stuck with me more than anything was the final shot of the farmer looking down at Babe and uttering the magical words "That'll do, pig. That'll do.". I remember how good those words felt. Like a gulp of water when you've been parched for so long. 

They sounded of utter acceptance. Of being enough. And in this day and age we have been raised to believe and feel we are never enough. We have been taught to strive for perfect, even though we know that doesn't exist. We live our lives chasing and impossible dream. A carrot on the end of a stick that we will never - ever! - reach.

Think about it; our society is built around making us feel flawed, insecure, unworthy and miserable. Through billboards and media everywhere there is the eternal message that you will not be happy until you own the new model of whatever car or phone, until you look like an impossible picture from a magazine (not even models look like that, which must do wonders for their self-esteem and self-worth!, but I digress), until you watch the must-see film of the year, until, until, until.

And it seems we are leading our lives waiting for that perfect tomorrow that will never arrive. This fact coupled with the constant feeling of failure because who we are and what we do is never enough poisons our days and undermines our self-worth.

So if perfect does not exist, why are we still using that word? Why can't we just accept that we are enough right here and right now? We have enough skills, enough willpower, enough talents, enough blessings to be happy right now.

Over the years that one line has become one of my biggest mantras. "That'll do, pig. That'll do." Because I am enough. Yes, I can and I choose to improve my life. I want to explore and to push way past my comfort zone. There are so many new and exciting adventures awaiting me out there. But all of this comes from a place of knowing I am already enough.

Because perfectionism is a joy killer and enough is where happiness lives. When you accept that something or someone is enough you stop trying to improve it and you start to enjoy it. To live mindfully in the moment. You accept the little flaws in order to enjoy the good.

The living room may not be perfectly tidy, but it is tidy enough, so you grab your book and your mug of tea and enjoy an afternoon reading in the sofa. Your child may take longer to complete a certain task, or do it in a less effective way, but instead of getting frustrated you tell yourself that the fact the task got done in the end is enough, at least for now. The sky may not be perfectly cloudless, but it's sunny and bright enough to enjoy a walk in the park you might not have done if you had otherwise stayed in waiting for perfect weather. A conversation with a someone you care about may not have been perfect and they might even have stepped on your toes a bit, but you see the meaning and intentions behind the words and suddenly you get it and that is enough.

I've come to the realisation that enough is all you need and I live my life on a quest against perfection. Because at the end of the day "That'll do, pig. That'll do" will do it every time.

Living in the now

Earlier this week we went to the Zoo. I haven't been in years, and it is something we never did together, so it was a great experience. At some point we saw otters. Now let me pause for a moment here. I love otters. Otters are my patronus. They are my spirit animal. They are my reincarnation goal. So naturally, as my boyfriend started taking pictures of them, he looked at me and, with great surprise on his face, asked me why I wasn't taking any pictures. 

And my answer to that question is this: because whenever possible I choose to be in the moment with my own eyes, instead of filtering and limiting my experience through some form of lens.

Yes, there are many moments when I absolutely love taking pictures for posterity, especially the goofy kind. But think about this for a moment: your eye can surpass any lens there is (by a lot!), so unless you really want to take that picture, why would you? Not to mention that when you look at your camera you are shutting off from literally everything else around you. And you worry about your shot, the light, the framing, the zoom, that person what is not moving away fast enough for you to take a picture without them in it. And all of this is keeping you from actually experiencing and savouring the moment you are in. 

Another little nugget: how often do you go back on your pictures anyway? If you spend an entire concert looking at it through your phone (because you are recording it), are you really experiencing it? And at what cost? Do you really do anything with the video after more than two days have passed? Because I had this particular experience and let me tell you that I never - ever! - watched the videos I made of that concert (to a point that I don't remember where they are or - most shockingly of all - what concert it was, because I wasn't truly living it).

I am not a world renowned photographer and I don't think I could take a picture of an otter that would be worth printing and hanging on my living room wall. There are professionals that do a great job at this, so I don't bother much myself. Instead I chose to drink in the moment for all its worth. I looked at the otters, from the pups to the adults and back to the pups again, from their tiny paws to their adorable expressions. I heard the cute little noises they made. I noticed the shadows of overhead trees on their fur. I felt the odd breeze that made the hairs on my arms stand on end, and how the muscles in my legs seemed to enjoy not walking for that little break. And I watched the otters so so closely.  

Please don't get me wrong, I still take A LOT of pictures, I really, really do. And not just the goofy kind, sometimes I go properly artistic. But I ponder on the cost involved in taking every single one of them. Because life goes by so fast that if you don't pay attention, you might miss it altogether. Slow is the new happy. And remembering to be in the moment may just save your life.

And just as I kept revisiting the otter moment in the Zoo, I came across this little piece of Leon Logothetis' book, The Kindness Diaries (highly recommended, the documentary is also available on Netflix worldwide):  

As I drove out of Utah and into Colorado, I looked up to find a double rainbow stretching across the towering Rocky Mountain skyline. Maybe because I slightly feared what was ahead, all I could do was appreciate the present moment. I had no iPhone to distract me. No Internet to take away my Zen. In that moment, surrounded by nature's extreme beauty, I realized that in this time of endless calls and texts and Insta-everything, we think we are connected. But it's a false connectivity. What we often lose is that relationship with the deeper fiber of life. As I drove through the crisp Rockies, the summer morning expanding before me, I knew that this was the real network. This was connection.

Leon Logothetis