Towards Imperfection

Sometimes in life, certain incidents occur that shake up your belief system entirely. I have always considered myself as someone who strives for perfection. I wouldn’t call myself a perfectionist but I like things done in a certain way and I cannot settle for something that does not satisfy my taste.  I guess somewhere, architecture has fuelled this kind of approach and once you are smitten by this bug of questioning if things can be done any better, you cannot easily let it go from your life. It slowly begins to consume you and then almost nothing qualifies the test of perfection. You miss the simple subtle instants of fulfilment that life is trying to guide you towards. This leads to total dissatisfaction and maddening unhappiness. I have been there.

It was only after I became a mother that I began to understand the fact that perfection and motherhood never go hand in hand. You have to make sacrifices at every turn, every day, every minute and in every sphere of life. Since the last four years I have very consciously moved away from striving for perfection. I now try to achieve optimum results with qualitative effort, which leaves room for improvement. That way I know in my mind that I can do better than this but it does not eat away my entire mind space and energy. It makes life much easier. I begin to see the larger picture, being more human than a robot trapped in the stressful race of life.

Before I could deviate from this new found attitude, my second bun is in my oven to be out in a few months. Hence I would like to continue this outlook further. It had taken me a whole year after the birth giving process to realize how life can be calmer on the other side of perfection. I want to start my journey of being a mother of two by accepting deficiency at all times and then discover accidently some moments of pleasure if and when things function smoother than expected.

Working in a new place in these delicate months of pregnancy has been a challenge in itself. And when the workplace demands of you to give better than your best at all times, regardless of a different physical and mental state, my self-confidence starts going beyond my reach. I cannot go back to that web of precision at this stage now! It has taken me years of consoling to accept myself without flawlessness, without any guilt of doing so, at home, at work and in every creative vent. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to achieve anything at all. I would rather have ten experiences on an average level than only two at the best level possible.

Maybe I am not at the right place at the right time. Or maybe life wants me to rethink on my decisions so that I find out on my own what my limitations are going to be in the next year. At least from this exercise I have realized one thing --- what is really important to you may not be of any importance to those around you. When you don’t expect perfection from yourself, you automatically do not expect it from those around you, which is easier on them as well. It’s you who has to decide the upper limit …for tolerance and for perfection.

For now, I have decided to be perfectly happy in my imperfection... much above mediocre, slightly below perfection.