In today’s culture, there seems to be a near expectation of perfection in every aspect of our lives or at least some form of let down if something does not meet our perceived expectations, but I have learned to quit seeking perfection but instead to embrace the flaws in our lives to achieve a better and happier life. I am not someone who came to this realization by reflection or flash of brilliance but rather through the brute force of my affliction, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, which methodically stripped away any semblance of a normal physical life. We’re trained from a young age what an idealized life should be through the stories we’re read, the cartoons and movies we watch and most especially the commercials all of our senses are flooded with. Throw in the directed onslaught we receive daily from the various connected devices we use and our perception of reality can become quite warped! The use of data to control us has never been more evident than in Facebooks recent mood experiment and a newly revealed Google Project X. As a society collectively, we have come to believe that we must have a huge house, two new cars in the driveway, dress a particular way, vacation in exotic locals and most of all look a certain way otherwise we have failed. It is an impossible standard to pursue because it can never be reached since if you get closed there is always something better to desire. My parents and grandparents before them built quite prosperous upper-middle class lives and while they, and their children enjoyed some benefits of that success; they didn’t seem to have the pressure to extend beyond what they had achieved to be flourishing in their own eyes. Today, even those who achieve the same level of success the generations of my family before me did, which is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve feel pressure to have and do more than that in order feel and look successful. This makes us go into greater debt to try to achieve the allusive dream of perfection. Even more worrisome is the pursuit of personal physical perfection beyond the God-given attributes we were born with. Beyond pursuing a healthy lifestyle by what we eat and exercise, this has become the biggest futile quest we have been duped into undertaking. Not only does it cost us obscene amounts of money and time pursuing this sort of perfection but even worse it usually creates an unhealthy cycle for most people that makes them have a bad self-image, less healthier than they would be and worst of all it drains and ultimately destroys their spirit. Is this pursuit of perfection how God meant and wants us to live? NO God created us with flaws so that is what makes us unique and is the real beauty of who we are! Look at the world that God made, it is the flaws which make it so wonderful. Think about the Grand Canyon from the perspective of pursuing perfection, it is an ugly scar that we would fill and smooth out instead of being the majestic, awe inspiring sight it is. Some of the greatest accomplishments the human race has achieved have resulted from mistakes or what was thought to be flawed thinking. Where would be had we only viewed mold as something disgusting to be gotten rid of instead by accident someone discovered its powerful usefulness to cure infections that were once deadly for us? How boring and bland the world would be if God created us with all the same standard of beauty and how little would things change if we all thought and believed the same. It’s our differences, our flaws that make us who we are and that is our perfection because that is how God made us. If you want to pursue perfection, pursue it in love because Jesus told us that is the purpose of our lives. Be well and happy! theragingbear/wordpress/quit-seeking-perfection/
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 00:12:43 +0000
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