Flawed

We are all flawed. It is part of our human condition. There is to be found no perfection among us.

I know that. I most certainly do. I’m trying to develop a better attitude and state of mind around this fact because my current attitude and state of mind are not working for me.

Currently, and for as long as I can remember, in my mind there are two states of being: perfect or failure. That is a very black and white way of looking at things, and the world is full of shades of gray (not to mention a myriad of other colors some of which I’m not even sure what they are, such as puce). In actuality the opposite of perfect is imperfect. Clearly part of my problem is equating imperfect with failure.

Part of the problem with equating imperfection to failure is that if you are doomed to be a failure then why be the least failed failure? Might as well go for the whole hog and be the most failed failure since no matter how hard you try you aren’t going to be a success (and here’s another part of my problem: I equate success with perfection) anyway so you might just as well eff it up big time if you’re going to eff up at all.

In my world, if I am not perfect then I am not a success. Therefore, because I am like all humans I am imperfect and therefore a failure. Carrying it further then it no longer behooves me to even try because I can’t ever be anything but a failure anyway since I will never be able to achieve perfection and perfection is the only way I can achieve success.

Now (said in my best Dr. Phil voice) how’s that workin’ for ya Trueself?

It’s not working very well, not at all. As a matter of fact it makes life damned hard and hardly worth living.

(Channeling Dr. Phil again) You must be getting a payoff with this behavior or you wouldn’t continue to do it. What’s the payoff you get out of this?

It gives me an excuse to not try. It makes it okay for me to sit on my butt and do little to nothing to make my situation better.

Okay. There. I’ve said it. That’s as far as I can go today, right now. I have to let this marinate for a while because it’s a big deal, a big effing deal, and I need to think about how I’m going to go about changing this attitude problem and how I can revise my point of view on things. But it’s a start, this acknowledgement of reality.

It’s a start.