Looking for Perfection, Does Anyone Know the Way?

Chiara Bruzzi/ July 17, 2020/ Mindset/ 3 comments

By: Chiara Bruzzi

For those of you who know me well, you know how strict and structured I am about absolutely everything I do. No matter how small the task is, I give 100% of myself every time. Some of you may think that that’s a good thing about my personality, but I have to disagree. Constantly judging and rethinking every move you make and being so hard on yourself is emotionally draining and damaging. In fact, looking at yourself too critically hinders the process of finding self-love and leaves you feeling like you are never enough (no matter how much you do or how hard you push).

About a year ago, I hit a weird phase in my life. I was stressed all the time, and I didn’t understand what was causing that stress. My grades at school were suffering, and my friends couldn’t talk to me without repeatedly saying, “Chill out!” This phase of my life was not healthy for me or for those around me, who had to deal with my annoyingness daily. After a few tough weeks of snapping at my parents and friends, I realized that I needed to learn how to live a more tranquil and happy life. To do that, I went to the one person I knew who was already on the journey of reaching genuine happiness: my dad (who became Buddhist shortly before this phase of mine hit). I asked him what I could do to help my stress, and he told me that meditation was magical and that the benefits were instant. I was very skeptical about the idea that fifteen minutes of meditation every Wednesday morning could help me, but it turns out that the myth is true… meditation helps, and the mind works in mysterious ways. (I recommend meditation to anyone who feels like they need some mental peace or is trying to find a way to relieve stress). After months of meditating, I realized that I could never be the person I wanted to be. I came to this conclusion by noticing the way that friends interacted with each other. I saw that no matter how close or genuine two people were, they could not always rely on each other. That is because even the best people end up choosing themselves over others in challenging situations. With that idea in mind, I understood that there was no way in the world that I could become anything close to perfection. Instead, I could be unapologetically me without being so concerned about what that meant or where that would take me. At that moment, I began to understand self-love.

Self-love is the regard for one’s well being. The way that we all love ourselves is subjective to the individual, which is why it is such a hard concept to grasp, let alone embrace. There is no way to quantify or express self-love since it is an abstract thought that is all in your head. For me, self-love meant getting rid of that idealized version of myself I was desperately trying hard to achieve. The perfect grades, always positive, and extremely social girl I, wrongfully, aspired to be. The biggest lesson that I learned from this experience is that aspirations are wishful thinking. They are not realistic. The word itself is a synonym to the word “desire,” showing how it is something we look up to but cannot reach. The moment I figured that out was when all the pressure I had to be this ideal version of myself disappeared. I no longer needed to be perfect, I just needed to improve what I didn’t like about myself, not so I could be perfect, but only so I could be better. That made me happier; that helped me get to know myself better.

My dad once told me that the most effective form of meditation happens with your eyes wide open. At the time, he said to me that the best way to gain mental clarity was by focusing on my daily reactions and emotions. He advised me that if I wanted to get rid of the things that made me suffer or caused me pain, I had to understand how they were affecting me first. I took that lesson to heart, and I applied it to the way I live my everyday life to see if the results were promising. Fast forward: the results did not disappoint. Now, before acting out of laziness or compulsion, I often ask myself: how will I feel a day from today if I don’t help someone who is hurting? Will I feel guilty or bad that I couldn’t be there for them? If yes, then I need to do something about it now so that it doesn’t hurt me later. Call it selfish thinking or manifesting your happiness, but at the end of the day, I feel better about who I am because I know that I can help others without hurting myself first.

The answer as to whether anyone can truly be good or if there is such a thing as a selfless good deed is something that I have yet to explore; however, I can say that it is very challenging to become the idealized version of yourself. We all have negative thoughts about ourselves that no matter how small they are, they overshadow the happy thoughts. For that reason, I encourage everyone to stop holding themselves up to standards that fit the idealized version of themselves. Let’s try to be better at the little things in life instead of completely changing who we are; because changing who we are will not always assure we will become a better version of ourselves, but enhancing the person we already are, does. There is definitely one thing that we all love (or at least like) about ourselves. Let’s embrace those aspects of our bodies and personalities and build from there. I refuse to believe in lost causes because, in one way or another, we are all lost or have been lost. We have all had moments where we needed a shoulder to cry on, but we couldn’t find one. We have all had thoughts that made us feel so bad about ourselves that we couldn’t even look in the mirror. What that says about these idealized versions of ourselves we so dearly hold on to is that they are fake. Not real. Unrealistic. We are not some divine beings that can reach perfection, so let’s stop trying to hold ourselves up to such ideals. At the end of the day, better is achievable, while greatness isn’t, so let’s just settle and try to be better rather than perfect.