Are you going to spend your life wondering
Standing in the back, looking around?
Are you going to waste your time thinking?
How you've grown up or how you've missed out?
Things are never going to be the way you
want
Where's it going to get you, acting serious?
Things are never going to be quite what you want
Even at twenty-give, you gotta start sometime.
I'm on my feet. I'm on the floor.
Now all I need is to hear a song I know.
I want to always feel like part of this was mine.
I want to fall in love tonight.
Someone's going to ask you what it's all about.
Stick around. Nostalgia won't let you down.
Someone's going to ask you what it's all about.
What are you gonna have to say for yourself?
Are you going to spend your life wondering?
Standing in the back, looking around?
Are you going to waste your time thinking?
How you've grown up or how you've missed out?
This song – “Praise Chorus” by Jimmy Eat World has
been one of my favorites for many, many years.
I haven’t listened to it in awhile, but something recently made me go back
to it and I realized what a perfect song it is for life’s journey. It’s all about living in the moment, seizing
the day, and being here now. As
wonderful has living in the moment is, there’s another part of the song that
really sticks out at me: “Things are
never going to be the way you want.”
Why, you ask, does that particular line stick out at me? After all, it’s probably the most negative
line in the whole song! However, it’s a
great reminder for me. It reminds me of
a very important fact that doesn’t always come easily to me, and that is…
A HAPPY LIFE IS NOT A
PERFECT LIFE
Sound simple? Yeah, not so much if you’re a Type A,
slightly neurotic perfectionist like myself.
I like perfect things. I like
perfect outfits. I like perfect
handwriting. I like perfect (not
necessarily happy) endings. I like
perfect tasks at work. I like doing
things well – the best, if possible. I’m
not overly competitive with others, but I’m pretty damn competitive with
myself. I want to do the best I can when
I’ve decided to commit myself to something.
I want, if at all possible, perfection.
As we all know well,
perfection is not possible in the grand scheme of life. No matter how wonderful, happy, or peaceful
your life is, it’s never going to be perfect.
N-E-V-E-R. As a
perfection-seeker, this is a hard concept for me to grasp. My life will never be perfect? Really?
I have to admit that my heart skips a beat when I think about that. We all want a perfect life, right? The question is… do we all accept the fact
that we can’t have one? I think I’m
still working on making sense of this reality.
LIFE ISN’T PERFECT. IT’S MESSY… YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT.
What if we said that to
ourselves everyday? What if we
surrounded ourselves with people who confirmed this statement that we didn’t
have to be perfect? I’m pretty sure that
I’m my worst enemy in this department. I
don’t think anyone in my life expects me to be perfect. The only one who expects perfection is
me. And this desperate search for
perfection comes at a cost. It has a
high price of perpetual dissatisfaction.
Identifying the problem is
the first step? Now that I know that I
am always striving to be perfect and that I deep down believe I will someday
have a perfect life (which doesn’t happen to anyone), it’s time to face this
problem head-on. No more perfectionism
in my life! Perfectionism – no big
surprise – causes a lot of anxiety. I
don’t want that kind of anxiety in my life and – yay! – This is something I can
control. I can choose not to be a
perfectionist. Instead, I can choose to
be positive.
6 WAYS TO STOP BEING PERFECT
AND START BEING HAPPY
Stop criticizing and
judging. This, of course is a huge one. If you are able to stop judging yourself and
others, you’re a lot less likely to be in perfection mode. Perfection comes from the idea that
everything has to be a certain way. But
who says it has to be that way? Who says
you have to look a certain way or dress a certain way? Who says you have to act this way or that
way? Okay, yes, we all live in societies
and sub-societies that have certain standards, but we don’t always have to live
up to those standards. And we can make
our own standards!
Learn to go with the
flow. Man, oh, man, this is a hard one for me! I’ve never, ever been a go-with-the-flow
kinda girl. I like to be in control,
holding the reigns, setting the pace. I
don’t like to go along for the ride or just sit back and relax. But, when it comes to battling perfectionism,
learning to just chill is really important.
Life is unpredictable. There are
going to be unexpected twists and turns and being able to deal with changes is
essential to living a positive life. We
can’t control everything and this is something I really, really need to work on
reminding myself everyday.
Know that everything has
a reason. Many of you might not be down with this idea,
but I truly believe that everything happens for a reason. Even the most horrific, awful things in my
life have taught me something, have me the person I am today. It’s not easy to remember this when dealing
with a crisis or heartbreak, but it’s so important to remember that life is
what it is. Some things are out of our
control and we just have to realize that someday the reason for what happens
will be explained. I do my best to learn
from every mistake, every bad situation, and all of these little lessons have
added up to make me the person I am right now.
Look at the big picture
of life. I try to ask myself this every time I’m
freaking about something not being as perfect as I would like it to be: will this matter in five months? Five years?
Usually the answers to these questions are “no!” Most of the things I get myself all worked up
about don’t really impact my life in the long run. Emotional wounds always heal with time. Though I might be panicky and worried right
now, in a few days, weeks, months, or years, I won’t be worried about it
anymore. When I find that I’m stressing
about something small (which I do more often than I should), I need to remind
myself to look at the big picture and pose the questions: “How important is this? Is it really worth all of the stress and
anxiety?”
Take time for a time out. Sometimes the
best thing to do when I’m feeling like nothing is going the way I want it to go
is to take a time out. Removing myself
from a situation can be the best way to get a fresh perspective on it. When I’m working hard to get something
perfect – whether it be an outfit for a night out, a blog post, or a serious
work-related task – it’s hard for me to step away. I’m in a zone and I’m focused and I don’t
want to waste any time. However,
whenever I force myself to pull away from what I’m doing, I find that I usually
come back with fresh ideas and a new perspective, which helps me not to be so
perfection-driven.
Appreciate what’s working
for you. This goes back to the idea I talk about a lot
– loving your self. You most likely have
a lot of great things going on and you don’t even notice these things when
you’re focused on making everything perfect.
When I’m seeking perfection, I don’t take time to realize what’s good in
my life and my level of gratitude seems to be a lot lower. It’s really important to realize what is
awesome about your life and to be grateful for all of the things/people/experiences
in it. Doing this will make perfection
seem a lot less necessary.
Those of you who aren’t
perfectionists might not really understand what a burden it can be to always be
striving for this unobtainable goal. As
I said above, there is not such thing as a perfect life. You might have a great life. You might have a happy life. But no one – no matter how hard he or she
tries – will have a perfect life. This
is a fact I must accept and embrace.
Knowing that life will never be perfect, that I will never be perfect
will take a lot of the pressure off. If
you know you can’t be perfect, you have to settle for being the best you can
be. And, right now, that sounds pretty
good to me.
Article courtesy of the “Positively Present” site.
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