Perfection

Everyone knows no one is perfect. We all know that striving to be perfect will eventually fail us. But for some reason that still doesn’t stop us. What stops us is failing. But what if failing weren’t possible either? What if everything that happens is okay. It’s okay to hit rock bottom, because the only place to go is up. It’s not that scary to hit rock bottom. What is scary is on the way down. But maybe the way down wouldn’t be so scary if we knew that the destination would only bring us back up. What if.

My idea of perfection is “by the book.” The book is whatever we’ve learned to be perfect. We’ve put together this perfect story that we’re supposed to follow, and if we don’t follow it something horrible happens. We don’t know what that is, but that is what we believe.

Growing up is scary. I’ve been in the nest my whole life. I graduated high school, went to college where my parents paid my bills, graduated college, came home to take a year off before medical school, and all of the sudden I’m not following my story anymore. I’m taking two years off, working in a restaurant, doing daycare at a crossfit gym, tutoring a friend, shadowing a family physician once a week, and living with my boyfriend. None of this sounded that bad to me either until I found out my whole family is worried about me. And now I’m worried about me. I don’t know if I am failing them or if I am failing myself, and either way I can’t seem to see straight. I’m failing and that’s all I see. I’m depending on an invitation to an interview for medical school to bring me back into my story. And then all will be righted again.

I can’t depend on an interview. I can’t depend on getting accepted to medical school. I can depend on trusting that everything is okay, everything will be okay, and I’m exactly where I need to be. So what if I color outside the lines? And who is to say that it is outside the lines? My family will still love me, I can support myself, and I have… myself. It took my a while to write that, but that’s the bottom line isn’t it? The one person you will always have is yourself. If you don’t have yourself, you’re missing the most important, dependable, and reliable person in your whole life. The one you’re supposed to always be able to count on.

I work with this guy, Shannon. He’s 39, been addicted to drugs and alcohol, spent several years in prison and is one of the best people I have ever met. For some reason, he’s had my back since day 1. And I’ve trusted him from day 1. On my first day he told me, “If any of these mother f*ckers mess with you, I’ll kill em. I aint afraid to go back to prison.”  Sounds crazy, right? But I’ve never thought so. In some strange way we have a lot in common. It would be easy to judge him, to assume he’s a bad person because he went to jail. But that isn’t the case at all. Like myself, he was just striving for perfection and got lost in his own disappointment. His biggest advice to me is “don’t be afraid of success.”

When Shannon first told me this, I thought, “don’t you mean failure?” Don’t be afraid of failure. But he meant success. Go into things with the intention to succeed no matter what. Even failures can be successes. It just depends on the perspective. The success of trying, the success of facing your fears, the success of following your dreams.

I think what I’m trying to say is that there is no “book to follow.” Perfection is far scarier than failure. Love yourself. Trust yourself. Allow yourself to be spontaneous, accept challenges, and most importantly accept success. Accept success in any form it comes in, and begin to believe that failures are only failures if you see them as that. Success is not a matter of perfection; it’s a matter of perspective.