Do you know the definition of perfection? It is. A flawless state where everything is exactly right. It can also be the action of making something perfect, but since perfect things are without fault or flaw, perfection is a perfect condition where everything is 100% great.
Think about that for a moment, where everything is 100% great. I used to think that everything had to be perfect or that I had to be perfect at something before attempting to do it. I could not be further from the truth, actually. I no longer seek perfection.
Perfection is kind of exhausting and perfection is also almost impossible to achieve. It doesn't mean that I should not try to excel in something, but I think as long as I do my best, it should be good enough, right? Even if it might not be perfection, my yoga teacher got me thinking about this yesterday because she was trying to teach us something new and part of that routine was rather complicated and some of the people they did not want to try it until they got the full routine down. They were kind of nervous that they didn't want to mess up something and my yoga teacher tried to make a point and she told us something.
She said, do you guys think that I would have started my own business, this yoga school, if everything had to be spotless and perfect first? Do you think I was perfect at organizing, financing, marketing, editing, and everything else when I started? I actually had to learn a few things along the way and until this day, nothing is perfect. But I see it this way.
If everything was perfection, then how would I grow? And that's what I want you all to think of when I'm trying to teach you something. If you make a mistake or if you do it slightly different or, yeah, it doesn't matter at all actually. I will not grade you or give you a medal.
This is all about that I want all of you to grow as humans and also to expand your knowledge of yoga. I must say she's a smart woman and she made me smile because most people have to learn the hard way. That life is not perfect and that things go crazy and flip upside down, that life takes a few turns. You may not like it at all, but you must follow it because it's your life, it doesn't matter.
Because the life you see people living in social media is usually not that perfect, I promise you. They just choose to show the perfect moment in between the madness or they stage a perfect setting or scenario so that everyone will be fooled to believe that it's real life. It might be something people want to believe as real life and it might be what so many people are trying to achieve. This hunger for perfection, this hunger for being perfect in everything we do and everything we post and everything we are and everything we say.
I mean, this is so unrealistic and it puts such pressure on people, especially the young people, that they feel inadequate if they fail. If they never can achieve this perfect goal, this perfect moment, this perfect lifestyle, this perfect feeling in their heads. How on earth will I ever be satisfied with not perfect? Most people will not be perfect in everything.
Most people will not be perfect at all and it's absolutely okay because if you can achieve your goals or if you can be a good person or if you can do something to the best of your capability, it should be more than enough to prove something for yourself if you need to prove something because you certainly don't have to prove it to someone else because as long as you're not happy yourself, it doesn't matter what other people will say because if people tell you you're beautiful, if you don't believe you're beautiful, it doesn't matter. If people tell you you are fantastic or you're so kind or you're so clever or you're so whatever you are. If you don't believe this, truly believe this, inside your heart, inside your soul and inside your head, it really doesn't matter what people say. And if life has taught me anything the last two years, it's that it doesn't have to be perfect.
And sometimes settling for less than perfection can make you grow simply because you will not have the failure in between. When life throws curveballs at you and things goes out of place and you don't have your normal routines and you don't have the way of life where you used to have it, you will have to rethink what goals you set, what accomplishments you will think is perfection or is good enough or is good enough for you at least. I know people who have never been happy with themselves and who constantly beat themselves up for everything they are not and for everything they was. I miss my old self, I miss the healthy Elisa, I miss the one who knows what her days are and what her life might be and who has a plan, who has organized lifestyle and all of that.
I miss that. But the amount of growing I've done the last two years, I wouldn't have done it without these problems. And they have made me into something more deep, more strong and more sympathetic with other people who have problems and other people who struggle and other people that may not have this perfect lifestyle which everyone thinks they have to have. If you don't have a job or a boyfriend or children or you don't give the perfect lunch for your children or you don't help them with everything or you don't have the school activities with them, you don't cook the perfect dinner or you're not the perfect wife, you're not giving your husband's sex every night, you're not cleaning the house every week and on and on and on and on.
If all of this have to be achieved for us to have a perfect life, then there are so many people who will fail and so many people who will be unhappy. I take all the good I can find and I try to compliment myself the way I should when I learn something new or trying to swim when I feel like drowning or wanting to give up when everything goes the wrong way and I don't give up, I try to compliment myself for that also. Because life ain't easy, truly it's not and you will have your ups and downs, you will have the shit but I think if we can go through the shit not beating ourselves up about it, then probably it will be better in the end. Life is not perfect, life is not black and white and life is so much more and people are so much more.
We just have to remember this when everything is dark.