I’m the kid who grew up watching Disney Princesses and Princes fall in love and live happily ever after. Im also the kid that did dancing and performing where every foot and hand had to be perfect and in it’s place in order to win or at least not be criticised. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to do it but perfection in every sense was demanded and expected. I made mistakes as I grew up as many kids do and still, like everyone make mistakes now. However, it is at the ripe old age of 35 when I have finally realised that not everything has to be perfect.
That’s right, not everything has to be perfect. I mean is perfection even possible? We can come pretty damn close but I have come to realise that if we are constantly striving for perfection to satisfy ourselves or others then we will never truly be happy.
If we strive for perfection we will in fact take on failures that perhaps aren’t even our own or things that we may not even think we have failed at but others do.
I have been reading a really interesting book on how to combat and overcome anxiety and it asked me to list what I thought my failures were. I sat and listed them but when talking back over them with someone else, realised that it wasn’t that I had failed at any of them it was that my view and perception of these things was biased towards the negative. When told these “failures” from another point of view they were far from that and much more towards successes.
I counted relationships as one of my failings because at 35 I haven’t been married and had a child as a single mother. However, actually being able to raise my daughter as a single mother is a success as is, not marrying the wrong person for the wrong reasons and ending up being unhappy. Neither of these situations is defined as perfect but I’m realising things dont have to be perfect for us to be happy.
Mr Tutu and I have had our ups and downs. In our first year we broke up twice and life has thrown a lot at the two of us, but we are still together. We are looking for a house, we are talking about our future, expanding our family and talking in terms of forever.
We argue, everyone does. You cannot be happy and content all of the time and as I said nothing is perfect. The point of all of this wittering on is that I don’t need perfection. I don’t need approval from those who don’t have the ability to give it for anything less than their idea of perfect.
All I need is what makes me happy and that is what I’m going to hold on to.
