05th Dec, 2021
While on a recent holiday, I was staying at an upmarket hotel on the beach. While checking out, the young woman at the front desk politely enquired, “How was your stay, Perfect, I hope?” Then, before I could answer, she herself added, “Of course, nothing’s perfect.”
Hmmm. “Nothing’s perfect.”
What a wise insight. Author Alice Waters reminds us that every tree is beautiful and we can be, too, if we forget perfection and focus on living well: “In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is still perfect.”
In nature, no sandbank, no garden, no crooked brook, no fragrant flower and no lush forest is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, but they’re still beautiful.
Same goes for life, because it’s governed by the same natural laws. You won’t ever find anything that is absolutely perfect.
And once you accept this, you’ll find that things are a whole lot easier to manage.
You’ll exist with far more cheerfulness, peacefulness and spiritual genius.
Nothing you work on will ever be perfect, even if it’s your magnum opus. I’m sure, in retrospect, Gandhi would have directed the freedom struggle differently, Michelangelo, in hindsight, would have changed a few strokes on the fresco of the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel and Leo Tolstoy would have written ‘War and Peace’ slightly differently, and given a second chance, we would all live our lives slightly differently.
No business will ever be perfect, even if you have the best product, the best team, the best market and your merchandise is magnificent.
No dinner at a restaurant will ever be perfect, even if it’s the most exquisite meal you’ve ever had.
No pair of shoes, cake at a bakery, film you watch on TV or sports match between top players will ever be perfect.
And no personal relationship will ever be perfect.
But here’s the wonderful thing, the more you embrace this understanding around the imperfection of all things, the more you will automatically start to see the magic within the mess.
You’ll begin to see the chemistry—and outright alchemy—in objects and experiences and humans that are flawed. You’ll learn to trust that it’s all perfect because of its imperfection.
In Japan, people fix broken pottery pieces by putting them back together with pure gold, a four-hundred-year-old practice called ‘kintsugi.’ It is fascinating that the once-damaged piece becomes stronger at the broken places. Even more importantly, the method celebrates the truth that something with faults can be reconceived as something even more valuable.
This Sunday, Embrace the imperfections in your life and Stay blessed forever.