perfection ain’t it

What a relief. What inspired that thought?

I met some good friends for coffee the other day.  We talk about life, struggles, spirituality and goals. It’s a deep conversation that I’ve come to find a lot of joy in. It’s connection that I look for in friends these days.  

Every time we meet, I leave the conversations better than I entered them. The elder statesmen of the group started talking about our standards as human beings, and how it relates to maturity and showing up for others.  His take was that part of maturity is not being mistake free, but looking at how long it takes him to notice and correct his shortcomings. 

Snaps for brother John. That is something that I needed to be reminded of. What that view does is take perfection out of the equation. 

We aren’t perfect. Never have been and never will be. Life is messy. Some days are messier than others, and some days are straight mud.  We go through stretches where we are high above the flood plain, and stretches where it seems like the mud is never ending quicksand.

If you tend to be hard on yourself like your friend Mathias John, this is an important thing to keep up front. How am I recovering from my mistakes? How long does it take me to bounce back? How quickly can I recognize I was in the wrong and own it?  

This comes down to owning your thoughts and actions. Recognizing that thoughts and actions (generally speaking) are in your control and handle them the best you can. 

If we were to define this philosophically, we’d call it (everyone together now)…Stoicism.

If you aren’t into philosophy, no problem, I’m still glad you are here. Most of the Stoic mindset is put into practice by many individuals and they don’t even know it.  These kind of people accept their faults, handle problems gracefully and take responsibility for their actions.

Perfection, it’s not real. Nothing is perfect. Nobody is perfect. 

As immature as I can be at times, I really like the perspective of bouncing back from problems as a measure of maturity. It hits for me. Not only in recovery related items, but in all areas of my life. I get unreasonably frustrated with myself more often than I’d like to admit, and bouncing back is a pretty good measure of the current state of my mental health.

And as John said, it’s a measure of my maturity. Close the gap between being angry, or wrong, or whatever the fault may be, and realizing the anger, wrong or fault. 

I’ll keep working on closing that gap.  It’s a work in progress.

Talk to you next week, 

- Mathias John