"Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it."
~ Salvador Dali
While the sentiment is noteworthy, the message, “You’re Perfect Just the Way You Are” is not a useful or helpful thing to say to someone. While this is said to make someone feel better, it is dishonest and potentially misleading in my opinion. On course, if you want to tell someone you love them just the way they are, that is much more honest - if not always completely honest.
No one is perfect just the way they are! I give some leeway to infants because they are as perfect as they can be, no matter their looks, intelligence, or disposition. But as we age we have decisions to make that will decide how we approach or depart perfection, never to get there. Because of our limitations, we will make the mistakes all human beings are destined to make. Paradoxically, making mistakes often helps us to improve.
Telling someone that they are 'perfect as they are' is taking away goals they have yet to achieve. It’s like saying, “you’re done”…. nothing left for you to do." Wouldn’t that be depressing! You’re not perfect until you reach your full potential and that assumes your full potential is perfection, and that’s an awesome goal, but not achievable.
We use the 'your perfect' phrase when people fail or are disparaged in some way. Children and adults with disadvantages are sometimes demeaned by others. People that do these reprehensible things are far more damaged as human beings than anyone they talk down to or criticize. They are the antithesis of perfection and that should be explained to someone who has been ridiculed. “You may not be perfect as none of us are, but you are far superior to the nincompoop that ridiculed you!” - maybe a more appropriate retort.
I doubt anyone with self-respect wants to hear that they are perfect the way they are. I would be suspicious of the person who said that, wondering how ill-prepared they think I am to handle my life. I would even hesitate to say to my wife or kids that ‘I love you just the way you are’. More appropriate would be to say that I love them, “scars and all”. I may not say that, but that is what I mean (and they know it).
Strangely, I found a blog from ‘Be Positive Now’ entitled “We are Perfect”, that claims we and everything is perfect. Yes, when you fall off a cliff, nature will work perfectly to take you down. When you eat fatty foods continuously, you will become perfectly fat. If you smoke, your odds of dying earlier than normal go up. The world reacts perfectly to our imperfections. Nature is closer to perfection than our reactions to it. For example, why did some people feel compelled not to leave on the East Coast when warned of Hurricane Florence? Florence was a perfect, if not a welcomed, storm. Citizen's reactions to Florence’s threat were not always perfect.
There is one paragraph in the “We are Perfect” article that I agree with. The problem is that this paragraph argues against its theme.
“Flaws, wrong, bad and ugly are thoughts that exist in our parent’s heads and thru negative training are passed along to us. We believe them and act as if the lies are true and pass them onto our children. Humans have been doing this since the first human wanted something other than what nature provided.”
Interestingly, all the comments praised this article immensely! But all the comments were dated to the year 2019. Maybe there is hope! Maybe we will all be perfect next year!
We are never done improving ourselves until we give up. That may be the furthest from perfection we can ever get.
~ Salvador Dali
While the sentiment is noteworthy, the message, “You’re Perfect Just the Way You Are” is not a useful or helpful thing to say to someone. While this is said to make someone feel better, it is dishonest and potentially misleading in my opinion. On course, if you want to tell someone you love them just the way they are, that is much more honest - if not always completely honest.
No one is perfect just the way they are! I give some leeway to infants because they are as perfect as they can be, no matter their looks, intelligence, or disposition. But as we age we have decisions to make that will decide how we approach or depart perfection, never to get there. Because of our limitations, we will make the mistakes all human beings are destined to make. Paradoxically, making mistakes often helps us to improve.
Telling someone that they are 'perfect as they are' is taking away goals they have yet to achieve. It’s like saying, “you’re done”…. nothing left for you to do." Wouldn’t that be depressing! You’re not perfect until you reach your full potential and that assumes your full potential is perfection, and that’s an awesome goal, but not achievable.
We use the 'your perfect' phrase when people fail or are disparaged in some way. Children and adults with disadvantages are sometimes demeaned by others. People that do these reprehensible things are far more damaged as human beings than anyone they talk down to or criticize. They are the antithesis of perfection and that should be explained to someone who has been ridiculed. “You may not be perfect as none of us are, but you are far superior to the nincompoop that ridiculed you!” - maybe a more appropriate retort.
I doubt anyone with self-respect wants to hear that they are perfect the way they are. I would be suspicious of the person who said that, wondering how ill-prepared they think I am to handle my life. I would even hesitate to say to my wife or kids that ‘I love you just the way you are’. More appropriate would be to say that I love them, “scars and all”. I may not say that, but that is what I mean (and they know it).
Strangely, I found a blog from ‘Be Positive Now’ entitled “We are Perfect”, that claims we and everything is perfect. Yes, when you fall off a cliff, nature will work perfectly to take you down. When you eat fatty foods continuously, you will become perfectly fat. If you smoke, your odds of dying earlier than normal go up. The world reacts perfectly to our imperfections. Nature is closer to perfection than our reactions to it. For example, why did some people feel compelled not to leave on the East Coast when warned of Hurricane Florence? Florence was a perfect, if not a welcomed, storm. Citizen's reactions to Florence’s threat were not always perfect.
There is one paragraph in the “We are Perfect” article that I agree with. The problem is that this paragraph argues against its theme.
“Flaws, wrong, bad and ugly are thoughts that exist in our parent’s heads and thru negative training are passed along to us. We believe them and act as if the lies are true and pass them onto our children. Humans have been doing this since the first human wanted something other than what nature provided.”
Interestingly, all the comments praised this article immensely! But all the comments were dated to the year 2019. Maybe there is hope! Maybe we will all be perfect next year!
We are never done improving ourselves until we give up. That may be the furthest from perfection we can ever get.
