I actually gave up my weekly slot over at Word Whores for a guest post from Danielle (go check it out, it’s really quite brilliant.)
The topic this week is about imperfection – or at least the things about ourselves that we don’t like. I’ve got a pretty extensive list, sadly enough, but I don’t think hashing those things out here is particularly productive. Most of said imperfections can’t really be changed anyway and so much of that really depends on perception anyway. Things I find to be horrendous are probably fairly unnoticeable by the average person.
Very few people hold others to standards of perfection…so why are we so hard on ourselves? (Although I will say, that’s probably true from a personal standpoint, as a western society we sure do pride ourselves on who has the skinniest thighs or the smallest ass or the whitest teeth. Why? (Like OMG – Jane Starlet has…*gasp*…smile wrinkles on her face! She might actually be human! Better plump her lips or something.)
It seems like human nature to focus on the negatives, though – and so many people do their best to stop time from leaving its mark. Physically of course, you’ve got stretch marks, crows feet, wrinkle lines, grey hair, cellulite, bad joints – but so much of that is just the scars of life – and they’re not bad things to own up to.
(It’s why I find Hollywood a bit on the pathetic side at times – illusion may be the name of the game there, but there’s something nice about growing old gracefully too.)
I had a teacher in high school once that said that everyone should spend about two minutes a day staring at their own naked reflection each day. Which sounds like it should be pervy maybe…but it’s really more about pulling away the shields of our own making. It’s easy to hide behind clothes. But when you’re forced to really look at yourself, you can hopefully see the good things about your body…as well as the bad. Taken as a whole, maybe you find that the grey hair doesn’t really bother you so much after all, because you’ve still got a pretty good rack, or nice ankles or whatever.
Physical aside, I suppose there are always things we can work on – being a better person, maybe – though I’m not entirely sure what that means. More sympathetic to our fellow man? Becoming a better cook? Maybe it’s just about accepting the imperfections and not worrying about the rest of it.
Make yourself happy and try to make others happy. (Or at least try not to go out of your way to make them *unhappy* if you can’t manage anything more than that?)
