DEAR EDITOR,
Please consider the following article I’ve written for publication.
Thank you. CC
There was a time when I thought perfection was the goal in life. Of course, I never achieved it and I began to get discouraged. I’m of the attitude, “Why play if I can’t win?” So for a while I sought imperfection with a vengeance. This brought much harm to me and probably to those around me, too. People like my family and friends.
When I finally stopped harming myself by pursuing hurtful things I had to take a hard look at what had gotten me to this point. Then it came to me: I was never intended to be perfect!
Today, I look at it like this:
Let’s say I thought I was really supposed to be a cat. Everyday, several times a day, I would pull my ears up, in the mistaken belief that this would bring my ears to the top of my head. I would then get my lower spine pierced and hang a brick there to lengthen my spine and grow a tail. I would eat burnt toast all the time and drink large quantities of very strong coffee. My mom told me these things would put hair on my chest, so perhaps I would grow hair all over if I consumed enough of both.
All of this would be ludicrous, not to mention pointless. People would lock me up-I was never intended to be a cat! No matter what I did, I would remain human.
As a human, I was born with flaws within me. I was designed to have faults. If I was supposed to be perfect, I wouldn’t have been born human. I was built this way!
Let’s take a look at history, or the Bible. The seven deadly sins: Pride, Greed, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy and Sloth are very much in evidence throughout both. History and the Bible are about human beings, of which I am one. If everyone before me was built with flaws, than it is inevitable that, I too was built that way.
But what to do about it? I certainly can’t say. Oh well. Since we’re flawed let’s be really bad all the time!
Trying to do what is right. Overcoming obstacles in order to be a better person. Facing my problems and then changing my behavior. These are the goals in life, not perfection.
To do this, I must first forgive me for having flaws. Then I must accept me for who and what I am, not something unattainable like perfection. Or being a cat.
When I screw up, I no longer berate myself for it. I apologize, if necessary, and try it again with a different approach. In the past, I wouldn’t try that again but I would spend hours, days, months, years asking myself how I could have been so stupid, why I ever did such a thing, etc. This only allowed me to be frozen in the problem.
Today, I know I’m going to make mistakes. Of course I am – I was born that way! I forgive myself and move on. I accept that I made mistakes yesterday and I will again today and will make them again in the future. I get over it.
The sin is never in the stumbling and falling. It is always in the not trying. So I try, often over and over, to do things right. And therein lies success.
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