“It’s been a long day” is a phrase heard and said at some
point probably by almost everyone that has ever existed ever. Yet, like many
things, it’s never really understood unless you’re the one saying it. You can
feel bad and pat the complainer on the back all you want, but in reality, the
closest you can get to truly understanding them is by bringing back your own
memories of “long days.” And let’s face it… our memories are kind of crappy. Or
in other—more eloquent—words, “our memories depend on faulty cameras in our
minds,” (taken from Death Cab For Cutie’s “What Sarah Said,” which you should
totally check out if you’re ever in the mood to just stare at the rain and feel
some feels. Oh, and bonus points to the band for putting such a killer name in
their title).
Well, gee, that kind of sucks.
The world would be much more cool if we all just had stellar
memories and could empathize way past our mortal limits—to perfection. Yeah,
perfection would be nice.
But wait….
If the world was perfect, we wouldn’t need empathy… because
there wouldn’t be any problems, which means there wouldn’t be any “long days”
which means there wouldn’t really be anything that would benefit from that
non-existent empathy, anyways. Phew, that train of thought was a mouthful.
So basically, what I’m saying is, we should embrace our awkward, human, apologetic non-perfection.
Not just because it’s all we have, but also because it’s worth taking advantage
of. That’s right ladies and gents, your flaws actually double as advantages.
Interesting. But how?
The fact that we have flaws means that we have opportunities
to learn. I’m not sure why, but this world seems to function through
opposition. In order to know happiness, you must know sadness; In order to know
epiphany, you must know ignorance; In order to know enthusiasm you must know
boredom; And in order to know improvement, you must know failure. Our flaws are
the whole reason it’s even possible for us to improve. I’d say that’s a pretty
sweet advantage.
But now we’re back to the perfection dilemma… if we were
perfect we wouldn’t need to improve! So once again our flaws are nothing but
annoying and inconvenient.
No. Don’t think like that. Abandon that thought. Throw it
away. Because perfection in this life DOESN’T EXSIST. And I can’t think of
anything more unhealthy than obsessing over something you will never attain on
your own (spoiler alert: through God, all things are possible—even perfection…
eventually).
The beauty of life is change. I’ve heard people define the
word “perfection” to mean “unchanging.” So maybe the fact that we are changing means that we’re on our way to perfection (if it’s in the
right direction). And with that mindset—BOOM—our lives can become way more
hopeful and positive and we can be like, “Hey! I’m slightly less flawed than I
was yesterday.” And then we get to feel that awesomely satisfying,
look-mom-no-hands type of feeling that undeserved perfection could never give
us.
Moral of the schpeel: Chill out, un-wad your panties, and forgive—yourself included. Because all we have is who we are... and I'd say we're pretty dang good.
