Choose Persistence

Close your eyes and count to ten,
then hope you never see Perfection again.
She dropped down dead at Improbable’s door.
You can’t be friends with her anymore.
©Assumpta Ozua

This is a lesson I have to keep relearning.

Perfection was an actual goal for me in my formative years. To be the perfect daughter, sister, friend, student, athlete. I always wanted to win. And I often did. Not at the detriment of others might at add – I mean, what good was winning if your friends weren’t there too?

The likelihood of achieving perfection in ones lifetime is slim to nill. Plus, what is imperfect to me i.e. my life, is perceived as perfect by others. It’s a sliding scale that seems to descend to new depths of lunacy with the popularisation of each new ‘celeb’ with zero talent.

I’m pretty good at making everything look okay. More for my protection than pretence as I was taught that a lot of people don’t actually care what’s really going on with you and some are happy when things are tough – trust me when I say I learnt this lesson the hard way…more than once.

I prefer to share the highs more than the lows because there is enough sadness in the world and I believe that my life’s work is to uplift. Having said that, I have a deep appreciation for good people because I have met a number bad individuals.

I know what real joy is because I have experienced sorrow. I treasure love because I know heartbreak intimately. I am grateful for my happiness because I have been (and still do get) sad. I love life because I have been close to death. And no, you do not have to have felt the negative in order to know the positive. I am speaking from my personal experience and the experiences of many people I know.

Recently someone told me my that life is perfect. It’s not – not by any stretch of the imagination. Social media shows snapshots of our happiest or most interesting moments. It’s amusing that pictures don’t actually show the whole picture.

I took time to explain to the individual (with the greatest respect) that they should assume less and focus more on how awesome their own life is instead of dwelling on what they think / social media tells them it is lacking.

I’m not perfect. My life isn’t perfect. I’m okay with that.

However, I hope that in my imperfection and spurts of openness, I am able to encourage and inspire someone else.