1,000 Days of Music - Day 10: Imperfect

So many of us long to be perfect. We capture our idealized lives in photographs and post them on social media. We dot our “i”s and cross our “t”s and hope for outward approval. We criticize and thereby withdraw permission for others to be imperfect. We slowly squash the creativity and courage in ourselves until we are like the robot-like people from Camazotz in Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time.”
I’m not saying we shouldn’t reach for excellence or aim for our personal best. In matters of life and death, perfection is essential. However, when we reach for perfection out of a need for external approval, we smother something essential to our life force. When it comes to perfection, acceptance, not imperfection, is the appropriate antonym here. When we accept our own imperfections, we liberate ourselves to live life freely and fully and in the completion of our highest potential.