We began this journey by exploring the concept of change. We believe that to live a fulfilling life. There’s this belief that we have to change the things around us to make them perfect. We also believe that we have to change ourselves to live the perfect life. No one is going to like us unless we hide our flaws. That’s why make-up was created. Now, it’s time to look at the biggest illusion of them all: the misrepresentation and misdefinition of perfect.

What is Perfection?

When you hear the word perfect, what synonyms come to mind? Some words that you may be thinking of could be spotless, flawless, and without error. With these definitions, perfection becomes an aspirational state that we find impossible to reach. When I’ve said that you are perfect, I’m sure I’ve only gotten eye rolls. We believe we can’t be perfect because we are still working on ourselves. There is still much grief and shame that I have to talk about with my therapist. How could I be perfect? How can life be perfect when I have issues with my relationships and issues at work? In our dualistic thinking, we’ve defined perfection as the absence of imperfection. What if perfection instead isn’t the removal of flaws but the inclusion of everything?

By this definition, perfection isn’t clean. An inclusive life is messy. The perfection I seek to describe welcomes all aspects of life: the good and the bad. This form of perfection appreciates and accepts all forms of flaw, contradiction, longing, and the incomplete. When I say that you are perfect, I’m saying that I reject nothing about you. You are perfect as you are. Any judgment, regardless of how minuscule, is a complete rejection of who you are. It’s to say your entire self belongs. Even what are deemed mistakes. Living with our flaws doesn’t mean we’re living a tidy life, but at least we’re not lying to ourselves.

Perfection Has No Demands

The only thing we need to understand our inherent perfection is to recognize it. Achievement isn’t needed here. There is nothing for you and me to understand that we are both perfect, just as we are. You either perceive this perfection, or you don’t. It’s a choice. This is a radical notion, considering that we’ve believed perfection requires polishing, fixing, and alignment. What if I were to tell you right here and now that none of this is true? We aren’t perfect because we’ve learned to avoid pain. We are perfect when we’ve learned to integrate our pain by understanding that it is a part of the whole. There’s no such thing as mistakes or the notion of “wrong” because everything is, and there’s nothing outside of what is.

Perfection requires the aspects of life that we reject. Perfection isn’t just the things we perceive to be good, but a recognition that good cannot happen without bad. The sun can’t shine without rain. There is no joy without sorrow. Our resistance, our shame, and our inner critic belong to this idea of wholeness. I’m not here to give you a sugary sermon that says if you believe in this idea of perfection, all your conflict will go away. If we consider the conflict as perfect and necessary, we will do a better job of holding that conflict as a mother does a newborn baby. This is a better alternative than resistance.

Opinions Blind Us From Perfection

Reality is already whole. Reality is already perfect. What closes our eyes to this realization is our tendency to categorize things as good and bad, to believe that certain outcomes will bring success and others will bring failure, or to think that I am broken and that this is what it means to be healed. If you haven’t noticed, our mind is divided, whereas perfection is always one. When we split things into fragments, we never see the full picture. It’s unlike the story of the blind men touching different parts of an elephant but not realizing that it was indeed an elephant. I’ve told this story before, but to summarize, one of the blind men touched the elephant’s tail and thought it was a rope. This is what we do when we only see a fraction of the whole. We believe it to be something that is not. We never see the truth.

Perfection = Wholeness

When we see perfection and wholeness as the same thing, we stop needing to do the things we talked about earlier. There’s no need to compare myself with others if we are all simply parts of the whole. There’s no need to progress through anything, no need to justify anything, no need to measure anything, and no need to fix anything. Everything is perfect. Our sense of insecurity stems from this ignorance of perfection.

The idea that I have less than someone else means nothing when I understand that my current status is perfect. It’s whole. I don’t need any more because what I have is always the right amount. It doesn’t matter if I’m not a millionaire. It doesn’t matter if I don’t have a spouse. These differences close me off to the reality that I am whole as I am. I need nothing. I don’t have to be better at anything because what does better even mean in perfection? As a result, my actions aren’t motivated by inadequacies but by my presence alone. I don’t have to seek perfection. All I have to do is remember who I am. Our perfection was never missing. We’ve just learned to only see in parts.

The Role of Division

By employing separation, it’s very difficult to discern the connections between what we perceive as bad and what we perceive as good. We don’t understand that the grief we feel from a person we’ve lost means that we love them a great deal. This love doesn’t fade because the person is no longer in their body. Through separation, it’s hard to understand that a failure or a mistake allows us to understand who we are not. A mistake allows us to understand and appreciate our limitations. None of these negative feelings seems perfect, but if we can reflect, we will start to see that our perceived suffering was necessary. We don’t avoid our failures but rather realize that they are just as important as, or just as unimportant as, our successes. Nothing gets excluded.

We don’t become perfect. We already are. When we let go of our arbitrary conditions, we start to see that everything is as it’s supposed to be. When we let go of our desires and expectations, we start to flow with life instead of trying to dictate it. Wrestling with God is a battle none of us will ever win. It’ll only leave us injured. We won’t understand this form of perfection until we redefine it. Perfection isn’t buttoned up and polished because this idea of perfection rejects the raw and messy. Perfection doesn’t remove the mess. It embraces it. Perfection is real. When I said there’s no such thing as objectivity, I lied. Wholeness, oneness, and inherent perfection are the only objective statements. You have to see it to believe it.

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