You’re Not Perfect? So Much the Better!

The pursuit of perfection is not only futile, it would not be desirable either. It is also in our imperfections that our own “genius” is found …

The society has never imposed such a duty of performance on us! And it starts at school (“Could do better”) where the syndrome of perfection primarily affects women.

Under patriarchal society, we knew what place we were assigned. Today, in the absence of a turnkey model, the modern woman must prove herself all the time and in all fields and transform herself into a thousand-armed goddess Shiva. We are paying a heavy price for it.

The ideal of perfection is impossible to achieve insofar as it is a pure abstraction, a standard that does not exist in nature, that’s why accepting our imperfections would help us to live better…

It is through our cracks that the light passes!

It is at the heart of our “flaws” that most of our humanity lies. As with works of art, imperfections give style, uniqueness and depth to the personality.

Accepting yourself as you are means letting go of our ideals and letting go of our desire for mastery or recognition. When you are convinced that ‘no matter how imperfect, I deserve to exist and to be loved’, you start to shine like never before.

No longer depending on the gaze of others gives us real strength, that of daring to be ourselves. Moreover, it is by being in a form of vulnerability, of humility, that one develops a sensitivity to beauty or to emotions and that one accesses the truth of existence.

Our imperfections are a space of freedom!

Complying with the expectations of society or of one’s family prevents us above all from existing according to our own and singular desire. Our imperfections are the mark of what we steal from the Other and his demands. Without them, we would have quickly let ourselves be pinned like beautiful (inert) butterflies in a window.

This is the path to which we invite: to get out of the frame, to go off-track, to approach our complexity, that most unique part of ourselves, which often escapes us, and to create a space for reflection where the subject has the right to evolve, to surprise yourself.

Our flaws are the engine of our desire!

“The best way not to move forward is to follow a fixed idea,” the poet Jacques Prévert liked to repeat. And in fact, by focusing all of our psychic energy on the goal (to succeed), by wanting to do too well, we run the risk of procrastinating or missing out on the essential.

The ideal of perfection is a bad compass. It is in fact impossible to orient oneself towards the North, the South, the East and the West at the same time. For the compass to come to life and show us the way to go, we must choose a direction!

But what puts us in the movement of life are precisely our imperfections, which in psychoanalysis we call our “lack of being”. Only lack creates desire, envy (“alive”).

Not to mention that without this feeling of incompleteness, love would not exist. As the relationship is the articulation of two gaps, the other must be deeply persuaded to “bring something” to us in order to feel existing, to fill a gap. If you are obsessed with perfection – like the “wonder woman” who doesn’t need anyone – you can’t give him the space he can come and stay.

The reverse of a defect is often a quality …

A “defect” is a very relative entity. A fault for one may be judged as a quality by another. What will be considered painful in family or in the couple can be a real asset in the job!

What if quality and flaw were two sides of the same coin? Finding the quality of the defect is a fun and very instructive exercise! Are you angry? You are no doubt very attached to frankness and honesty. Are you stubborn? You are probably persistent and not easily influenced …

A defect is often a defense mechanism put in place at a certain point in our life to protect us from the Other or from reality. Drawing “the right thread” would be a way of “refreshing the page”!

Listing your strengths and weaknesses is like making a moral judgment on what you are against an alleged standard. But it is above all a matter of recognizing what is in order to find the best arrangement of oneself with oneself and of oneself with others.

Because we rarely stray from ourselves (As the saying goes: “Hunt the natural and it comes back at a gallop!”). At the most, we can “smooth things over” so that our excesses do not stand in the way of the realization of our desires or spoil our relationships with those we love.

Our imperfections push us to develop our strengths!

Just as the blind or the deaf hear or see better, each of us is inclined to compensate a “less” with a “more”. Thus, a very shy person can develop a keen sense of resourcefulness so as not to have to ask for directions in the street; a hyper sensitive, following his intuition …

To meet your flaws is always a rich and fascinating exploration from which unsuspected resources and original solutions emerge. It’s a real treasure hunt! Also, rather than wanting at all costs to mask our weaknesses with all kinds of artifices or prostheses – which risk leading us to develop a personality on the front, it is better to try to do with it, to do “with” rather than “Against” or “without”. And make work of our imperfections!

Reference: https://liberationist.org/why-good-enough-is-better-than-perfect/

Photo de Andrea Piacquadio provenant de Pexels