Sunday 28 October 2018

To be perfect

The burden of trying to be perfect! The heaviest that you can carry. Firstly, there is nothing like being the best because there will always be someone better than you. Secondly, even trying to be your own perfect self is a huge task, fraught with a lot of pain which often ends in self criticism and self doubt. If you fall short in anything you do, imagine how you feel let down by none other than your own self!
Anyway, the most import ant question: why do you seek to be perfect anyway? For others to admire you or for your sake, because your standards may be high? But what is the need for your standards to be so high that you pile on anxiety and stress in trying to be perfect?
I agree that there is a certain way we all have of doing things. Like, organizing an event or a party or doing business or socializing. And we do pick up ideas of bettering ourselves from others if we see something we like and would like to emulate.
But, the "I am the best" feeling becomes a stress eventually. You have to sustain that "I am the best" in every word and action. Painful!
As a friend asked me recently, why can't you say "so what" to yourself? So, if you are simply dressed for a party! So what? So, you didn't feel like attending an event. So what? So, someone didn't greet you at a get together. So what? Their loss! We can and should lighten ourselves up this way instead of carrying unsustainable burdens of standing out, of being singled out, of always turning heads when you walk in. And also, having heads turn away. Doesn't matter if they do, so what?
So, "so what" is going to be my theme song from now and I wonder what result it will bring in my life. But why even wonder? Whatever happens, so what?
Surekha Kothari

surekhakothari.wordpress.com


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