Perfection rears its ugly head

"An impatient spirit can be a veil to hide the reality of what we are. It is often manifested to indicate importance or busyness. It frequently appears as a mark of zeal or dedication. But to be easily irritated, to frown readily, or reply sharply is a form of pride usually used to cover insecurity or a deep sense of inferiority. A self-justifying habit reveals something similar. Those people who can't stand to be misunderstood but are forever explaining their actions are really saying, "I want you to think I'm perfect. Of course, I know that the present situation does not let me appear so, but if you will just let me explain..."


Okay, so we all know I am a perfectionist and an overachiever. Or maybe you don't know, and if you didn't now you do. My friend shared this quote with me and I thought it was interesting. I actually had to read it two or three times there is so much meaning in it. It hit home with me though and it is something I have become increasingly aware of and have been working on to improve. The second half especially made me realize, about the people who can't stand to be misunderstood are always trying to explain there actions. That is me in a nutshell. I absolutely hate being misunderstood, or I used to absolutely hate it, now I am starting to accept it. I have just always wanted people to understand where I am coming from, what I am thinking, why I am thinking in such ways. So when I do something that in my perception is of a not so perfect nature I automatically begin to explain myself to people and tend to tense up and freak out a bit. I get anxious and over bearing trying to explain how this one imperfection truly isn’t an imperfection because I have a wonderful explanation for why I did it. How silly it seems to say it out loud like that, but that is what it is. I love the last sentence "I want you to think I'm perfect. Of course, I know that the present situation does not let me appear so, but if you will just let me explain...". How wonderfully said. That is my inner dialogue on so many occasions, when I really wish instead I could just let go and allow myself to not be perfect or to change my perception on what is perfect and see a mistake as an experience, a learning process and not feel like it matters if everyone is judging me, because only my own judgments should matter and in essence I should not be judging myself. So why I wonder, do I always feel the need to explain myself? I know it is a lack of confidence, that sometimes I have a hard time being that person who says or does something and says "I said it, I did it, get used to it" (That was for you Diana). But seriously, be able to stand next to all my decisions, the good ones and the bad. To be able to recognize the "bad" ones and be okay with them. Maybe not that I did them if they were 'wrong' (I hate using right and wrong) but at least accept that that was my decision and move forward and learn from it.

I almost start to think that no one can ever really know what is right or wrong until they experience it themselves. I never really have thought of myself as someone who has to experience things for myself to understand them. I am such a naturally empathetic person, I can feel other's pain I can imagine being in their situations and know the heartache. I can imagine what physical pain would feel like, but I don't really know. I have enough sense to say "I don't want to shoot myself in the foot that would hurt" and I can start to imagine what that would feel like and I can get to the point where my foot will begin to hurt, but I can't say I really know what it feels like until it happens. As much as I have experienced in my life, I have experienced more through others, watching, understanding, feeling, and I have realized how much I haven't truly experienced myself. Suddenly I want to experience things, both the good and the bad. I have been so scared to put myself out there and experience bad things that I think I may have missed out on the good. Feeling comfortable in life is a ruse. It is a false sense of security. It is almost a neutral feeling or a numbness. I always argue with people about how a person can't gage a feeling without knowing it's opposite. I feel that the more sadness you've felt the more happiness you can feel. For how does anyone know what happiness is if they don't know what it is to be sad? The extremes balance each other out, the further one side of the line goes away from the middle point, the further it allows the other side to grow. I see it as a mathematical line with the center at 0 and the negatives and the positives going in opposite directions. Everybody's line is a different length, but I feel they are always equal. Even if a person is lost in a depression that makes the negative side of their line grow long, they have opened up the opportunity to experience a higher state of happiness because as the negative side grows so does the positive always in equal distance from their originating point. I think the same goes the other way, the happier a person feels in life and the longer the positive side grows the negative side continues with it, giving them the opportunity to experience a greater sadness. I see this in all feelings in life, all opposites sit on this line for me. But of course, maybe that is why I have such a problem with extremes.

Oh all the connections start to make my brain hurt! Not to mention, how does one really measure those emotions? It's all subjective and it‘s all about perspective. Some people may be perfectly satisfied with their lines only going to -5 and 5, while others may feel like they've reached -100 and 100, while others probably don‘t even think about lines or measurements or anything else and just walk along singing their happy or unhappy little tunes. Who knows?! I know that I feel like my lines are very short because I have stayed in my comfort zone too long and I want to lengthen those lines and experience more. For the first time I am almost excited to experience the bad because I know it will make the good that much better. I think I am finally coming to accept the bad things in life, where before I always lived my life trying to avoid those things because I didn't want to experience them, I was happier not knowing because I felt like I had such a good idea. Ideas are great and let you understand a bit of life but experiences let you live life and nothing teaches more understanding than living it. So the next time I jump to feeling like I have to explain myself in certain situations, I think I will stop myself and allow whatever happens to happen. Sometimes just doing what I do is a good enough justification.

"You make yourself perfect. Whatever you define as perfect is perfect. If you define perfect as yourself then you are perfect. Don’t define perfect using a definition from an external source; you can never achieve perfection by using someone else’s perception."