PERFECT, OR NOT?

Perfect. That is what I wanted my new year to be. I had so many plans and all these things I looked forward to achieving. I had my 365 slots for my daily to-do lists set aside in my journal and I was going to do everything to make sure that all those slots were filled with checked out sticky-notes for each day.

On this one, particularly chilly evening, I am seated at my happy place, staring at my journal, watching the already dark and gloomy sky turn even darker, the end of a day. My happy place is perfect. Everything about it screams perfection, well at least to me. The wind blows very harshly, which makes me happy, I mean who does not love the feel of wind running through hair and beating your face. This spot faces away from the sun, I am not a vampire, but this makes me happy too. The air feels fresher. The most perfect thing about it though, would have to be the fact that it bears my heart and all my highs and lows, all my break-ups and make-ups have all been shared with this place. My perfect happy place. We are not here to talk about my happy place though.

With all these going on, and with the darkness creeping in, I felt angry. Some unavoidable circumstances had caused my schedules to get messed up, and my to-do lists were now going unaddressed and my journal was starting to have blanks and look messy. I could not even turn to writing and poetry which are my forms of release and it was just frustrating. I had not expected my days, my plans or schedules to go totally in line, but I had wanted them to be near-perfect. In case you are wondering, no, I am definitely not a perfectionist, but I just wanted it all to go well.

Perfect- having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.

Perfect- Achieving something without flaws or mistakes.

Something perfect is something that is ideal. As a Chemist, my understanding of ideal is obeying certain rules or laws. Like for an ideal gas, or a perfect gas; it obeys all gas laws and it is used as a standard of comparison for other gases. It has no errors, and forms exact curves. It is also theoretical, hypothetical. Oh no, a Chemistry lecture. You can relax, the Chemistry part is done.

Moving on to the English lecture, using an ideal or perfect gas to as a symbolism for a perfect human, I guess a perfect human would make no errors, have zero flaws and such. A perfect human sound more like a robot. Humor me, if you may. What makes a human being, a human being? I asked some of my friends and more or less got similar responses. A human being is a human being because of their ability to feel, to perceive emotions and communicate them. The ability to perceive thoughts, communicate effectively, make decisions and face consequences of the decisions make us human beings and not just some primates in the jungle. Robots lack emotional intelligence. They do not have feelings like humans do, well, unless we are talking about Will’s Robot and we are lost in space. Since we are very much on earth, then it is safe to say robots lack emotional intelligence and that is why they are able to carry out tasks with a great level of perfection, or near perfection in line with the algorithm put in them by their programmer.

I’d say that it is our feelings and emotions that make us imperfect. I think it is not such a bad thing after all. While we may make some seemingly bad choices, maybe telling a lie to avoid hurting someone, hide something from people because it could hurt them, or steal to provide for those you love or whatever we may do for reasons best known to us, just imagine a world with no emotions. No compassion, no kindness, no love, no care. It would be a pretty damn cold world. As I said, nothing and no one is perfect.

Despite the bad, the good balances it out, like yin-yang, and if it means we get a shot at happiness within an imperfect world, then I guess that is pretty perfect in a bizarre definition. There is this song or should I call it a rhyme from a certain cartoon I loved as a child. It said: For every to, there is a fro, for every up, there is a down, for every stop, there is a go, for every square, there is a round, to and fro, stop and go, that’s what makes the world go round. Balance helps the imperfections become more perfect. Balance tones down the perfections too. So, don’t go all grizzly because you are not so perfect, you don’t really have to.

So what if I don’t check off every item on my lists, so what you don’t get perfect grades, so what you make slip ups and mistakes, all these give you a chance at getting better. It means there is room for you to learn and grow and improve.

Three wise friends of mine said:

1. Enjoy the troubles of being bad at some things and being good at others. Where is the joy in not having challenges?

2. The moment you get good at something, there is likelihood of you stopping and not doing it anymore. There is a measure of joy in having space to get better.

3. Being perfect scares me. I would rather be happy failing than having mastery of everything and being unhappy. I would never want to be perfect.

As for me, with all my anger and frustrations, I will embrace imperfection; even though it still sucks and I still wish my 365 days and my one million lists could be checked out. These flaws, they make perfect sense if you think about it. Without them, who would I be? Who would you be? What would our purpose be? Maybe we would be self-destructing robots, who knows?

In a universe where you can be anything, embrace the imperfection, because it gives you a giant room to expand and explore your potentials and just be awesome.

So, go on, be awesome.

Book recommendation: Daughter of smoke and bone by Laini Taylor and Days of blood and starlight by Laini Taylor.

POETRY PIECE (Unrelated)

FLY, RUN—FIGHT,RISE

Fly little bird, fly

Fly let nothing hold you back

Fly so you do not plummet to sudden death

Fly so you are be able to survive

Fly into the harsh cold world

Fly, beat the strong blustery wind

Fly, little bird, fly!

Run little girl, run

Run for the world is so unfair

Run from the monsters chasing you

Run for there is no one to fend them off

Run from the demons keeping you up all night

Run for you are unable to fight

Run as you amass strength of spirit to go on

Run, little girl, run!

Fight, oh warrior, fight

Fight for the virtues that you hold dear

Fight for your loved ones waiting home

Fight for the world that needs you to

Fight for it is all that you can do

Fight for the evils done against you

Fight against all the injustices done in this world

Fight, oh warrior fight!

Rise, oh universe, rise

Rise against it all

Rise against your doubts and frights

Rise against your pains and losses

Rise against every little thing holding you back

Rise against the nightmares and terrors

Rise, oh universe, rise!

_darkheartemoji_👸🏾🖤✍🏽

Eonpoeticworks.👸🏾🖤✍🏽