| I
was sitting on my deck the other day, listening to the baseball game on
the radio, barbecuing some dinner when I said, "this is perfect." My friend
then asked me, "I thought you said that your idea of perfection is being
able to skinny dip with the Swedish bikini team." (Sadly, I did say that.
Sue me.) I then explained to him that both sets of circumstances were
equally perfect in my mind. I could have either one (and unfortunately,
the odds of one are much greater than the other) and be equally happy.
This sparked an argument over what perfection really was and whether you
could have more than one definition for it. Perfection. What exactly does
this word mean and why do so many people spend their lives seeking it?
The perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect lover; the list goes on.
Why do so many people spend endless hours of their lives looking for this,
and often die before having found it? Many people believe this is the
key to happiness. If you have everything you want and the world listens
to your every whim, many believe the overriding emotion they'll be experiencing
is unparalleled elation. Einstein would say that Happiness=Perfection
and that this equation works both ways. And who doesn't want to be happy?
The Constitution says that it's our right to look for it, along with its
friends, life and liberty. Heck, it almost makes you sound un-American
if you aren't looking for it. So why have so many people settled on perfection
as the ultimate source? Why not kindness? Or what about intelligence?
Maybe because perfection, in many people's minds, includes qualities such
as these. Perfection is an extremely broad and versatile echelon to strive
for. What's perfect for you may not be perfect for me, and vice versa.
So what I'm saying is that perfection is a matter of perception. And as
I said before, people look for it in virtually every aspect of their lives.
They just don't want a perfect spouse- oh no. They want a perfect spouse,
a perfect house, a perfect meal, a perfect day. We want perfection in
the huge issues in our lives, but we also want it in the tiniest details
of our lives. We want that perfect job, but we also want that perfect
haircut. Or we want that perfect vacation, but we also want that perfectly
sharpened pencil. We'll be content, even joyful, if we can find perfection
in just one of these aspects, but many of us will never be happy to our
cores unless everything is just right. Well, I'm here to tell you that
it's impossible to have everything exactly as you want it, so you better
learn to appreciate any amount of perfection that you can find. She's
like all of our natural resources- there used to be a whole lot more of
them. If we listen to what our parents and elders tell us (and that's
a good thing to do, from time to time) this was a veritable paradise back
when they young. They often refer to it as "The Good Old Days." They regale
us with tales of how the sun shone brighter, people were nicer, the grass
was greener, and you could leave your house unlocked. |
They say that perfection was like pixie dust that floated as plentiful
as pollen in the air. These days, though, the sun is about to go out,
people are jerks, the grass has died, and if you leave your house unlocked,
you deserve to get robbed. And perfection? Well perfection has gone the
way of the dinosaurs, if you listen to the right people. So what should
we do? Well, since perfection has become such a hard to find commodity-
it's the saffron of society: scarce and considered a luxury to most- we
need to savor every last taste that we can find. Gone are the days when
you can expect perfection to permeate your life. Today, you may only find
it in one or two places, and then for only a short time. That's if you
keep your eyes closed. What we as a society need to do is open our eyes
and realize that perfection really hasn't gone away, but rather we've
raised the bar so high that even the mythical gods wouldn't pass mettle.
Our insanely high standards have strangled our vision of what's around
us. Take off the blinders that so many of us have and look at the world
in a new light. Perfection's not gone-no, it's there for us if only we're
willing to look. We need to broaden our horizons and diversify our definition.
Don't tie yourself down to just one option anymore. The more things you
can think of that make you happy or are perfect, the greater the chance
that you'll actually find them. It's like our parents used to say- "there's
safety in numbers" or "the more the merrier." Either one works in this
case (MAN, my parents were some sage SOB's). Think about it mathematically-
in this endlessly large world, there must be at least a million different
activities or qualities that people would qualify as perfect or that make
them happy. Now, in that pool of a million, if you're looking for just
one thing, your chances of finding it are like looking for the needle
in the proverbial haystack. It's like trying to find a hundred-dollar
bill on a busy city street- good luck. If, however, you are looking for
25 to 100 different things that could make you happy, your chances are
that much greater- something akin to finding a penny on that same city
street. So when someone asks you what your idea of perfection is, don't
say playing baseball. That's too narrow for today's standards; you've
put on the blinders again. If you don't get to play baseball, you're not
going to be truly happy. Instead, say something like playing baseball,
or sitting in the hammock, or going to the movies, or reading a book,
or talking with my friends, or buying some CD's... and don''t stop talking
until the inquisitor instructs you to "shut the hell up! (and believe
me, they will.) We as a society need to lower our standards and become
more realistic. We have to realize that we live in an imperfect world,
but that within that sphere of imperfection, flawlessness does exist.
All we have to do is look. |