I would consider myself a perfectionist. I can hear my dad’s words echo in my mind, “if you can’t do it right, then don’t do it at all”. When I set out on project or task, I strive for perfection. This has hindered me many times. If I don’t think something is as perfect as I think it should be, I would redo it until I could accept it or give up completely. It has occurred to me that in trying to do things perfectly, I have held myself back from having the freedom to be creative and accepting of my imperfect projects. Over time, I learned I have wasted a lot of time, money, mental anguish and creativity in trying to achieve perfection. By definition, perfect means being entirely without fault or defect. Perfect can also be a judgment of something’s worth, action or appearance. However, perfect is really more of a statement of personal acceptance, rather than something to be acquired.
It can be argued that nothing in this world is truly perfect. Manufactured items that are created by machines are more likely to perfectly printed, cut and put together, but can still be flawed. No matter how perfect you think something is, if you look close enough you most always can find a fault or flaw. Have you ever looked over an item that you bought in a store to be sure it is free of a flaw only to find out, when you returned home, it had a flaw in a place you didn’t look? I had a friend who once opened up and looked at every suitcase in Costco to find the “perfect” one, only to find an isle full of imperfect suitcases with a flaw somewhere.
Maybe instead of trying to be perfect in how we look, what we do or in who we are or what we expect of others we can open up to the idea of perfect with a twist or perfectly imperfect. I prefer handmade things to manufactured items. Though likely to be imperfect, handmade items are unique, one of a kind and made from a person’s creative hand. Handmade items take a caring, personal touch. If you look at nature, which most of us would agree is beautiful, you won’t find perfection. Though perfectly beautiful, every tree has crooked branches, most every flower has a bent or brown peddle, rocks are jagged, clouds are scattered and water flows carelessly in random directions. Who would want to live in a perfect world with perfect people? Where everyone and everything was pre-printed in the same exact fashion? The wonderful uniqueness of each person and thing would be missing. This wouldn’t make for a very interesting world. In lieu of a perfect world with perfect people I would much prefer the way we have it. I appreciate the uniqueness of each person I encounter. The blunders, the bloopers, the bumps, the bulges and the droops all are part of the wonderful perfectly, imperfect world in which we live. Maybe nothing is meant to be perfect and perfect is just a word of acceptance. We should all try our best, be our best and do our best, nevertheless, I think we can all appreciate and learn to accept perfectly imperfect. After all, we as well as nature, are beautifully and wonderfully made, just the way we are!
~Teri Storm