Perfectionism

My personal experience with perfection was of anxiety, tenseness, nervousness, uneasiness, and much conflict.  I was always in agony.  Whatever I do or have done for me was not good enough.  I was constantly discontent with myself and those around me.  I felt that I have to be somebody, do something, going somewhere, and constantly on the go go go!!!  I criticized those around me for not being just like me.  I lived in the state of anxiety, of constant striving to be more, to do more and the present moment is never good enough. 

A fault finder cannot find anything right even if she is in the right time and in the right place.  Everything seems to be just a mess.  Just recently I have become aware that I am quite neurotic.  I have inflicted a lot of pain and suffering upon myself and those around me in my constant striving toward perfectionism.  I have become aware of an idealist in me.  I condemned the real for the unreal and the unreal for the real.  And this ideal pulled me towards the future, out of the present. 

Since then I have learned not to create ideals for myself. Life is so complicated.   I have learned to be kinder towards myself and others.  Life has been creating enough problems.   But life problems can be solved.  If my house got flooded away, I can get another house.  If I loose my job, I can find another job.  If my man left me, I can always find another man.  But the problem idealism gives I cannot solve.  They are impossible.  I cannot be a Jesus or a Buddha.  I can only be myself.  I can only be whole.  Wherever I am and whatever I am doing, I do it totally.  I let it become my meditation.  If it is whole, if it is total, it is enough.  I know it is not going to be perfect, so I don’t worry about it being perfect.

Be whole.  Be real. Be here.  Be total. Don’t bother about perfectionism.  You will be imperfect but your imperfection will be full of beauty within itself.  Perfection is not humanly possible.  Nobody has ever been perfect and nobody can ever be perfect.  But don’t try to be imperfect because even that can become an ideal!!!  If you are perfect accept that too. 

Try to love yourself.  Don’t condemn.    Remember that a person who cannot love herself because she goes on condemning herself cannot love anybody else either.  A perfectionist is not only a perfectionist herself, she is about others also.  A woman who is hard on herself is bound to be hard on others.  Her demands are impossible. 

Compassion

Compassion basically means accepting people’s flaws, not expecting them to behave like you, society rules, or gods, because that expectation is an inner violence, cruelty. 

One of the fundamentals of compassion is to dignify everybody.  Compassion is very understanding.  It understands that nobody is a hopeless case, nobody is unworthy, that whatever they have done to you, they have done it an unconscious state.    And if you don’t forgive them, who is going to forgive them?  It is the finest understanding that is possible to man. 

Remember, being compassionate does not make you higher or better than the person that you have compassion for; otherwise it becomes an ego trip.  Remember not to cripple another person’s growth or humiliate this person in your state of compassion because this is not being compassionate. Behind the actions and the words, your acts of compassion are tainted by a subtle sense of self-importance and desire for recognition. This can become very destructive to other people; in the name of compassion, you can destroy and create bondage.

One of the aspects that I have been aware of is enlightenment without compassion.  This can be extremely selfish.  There are lots of enlightened people, but very few are masters, very few have compassion.