Oh great. Perfect.

Four times in the past 24 hours or so, I have “stumbled” across messages about perfection. When the same things keep coming across the wires, it makes me contemplate. My little brain wonders, “Who is trying to tell me WHAT?”

The truth of it is, I tend to want things to be done perfectly. By me. I don’t have these expectations of anyone else. But when it comes to my “doings” I always feel like things aren’t quite good enough.

Intellectually, I understand that we live in a world of chaotic schematics. There really is not any credence in thinking that we humans can achieve perfection in any way, shape, or form. I know this.

But when those times come around when I fail miserably at something, I get very frustrated with Polly Wolly. And then, I doodle all the day, as a result.

A good example of this happened the other night. A background note. I “focus” very intently on my spiritual journey. There are times, when things seem very cohesive, and right. There is clarity. I am Peaceful. I fell even.

So back to real life, and the clamor. The other day/evening, we had a series of little tiny mishaps here around the house. Nothing of great proportions. Just one thing after the next. It was adding up. My pot of irritations was being stirred.

Then, I went to do a sketch on my iPad. I use an iPencil. The day before, Lewey had chewed an iPencil beyond recognition. They are $99 a pop. And. He has 5,972 chew toys in this house. At least. For his little teeth and his cute jutty underbite. And now, at that moment, I picked up my iPad to begin my little work. There was cute little Lew. With my other iPencil in his mouth.

I lost my semblence. I yelled. “LEEEEWWWWWWEEEEYYYY!” It was a good loud yell.  He froze. Lew looked like he was facing a gauntlet of Pit Bulls. If dogs could cry, he was doing it. Yes, I had lost it. In that moment, my peace, my clarity, my center was gone. Vamoose. Out the door. My “spiritual work” was nowhere to be found. Not even in the depths of Stephen Hawking’s Black Holes.

I lamented that moment. I was embarrassed and p#ssed off at myself for overreacting.

Perfection.

The thing that I read just now, about all of this, had to do directly with our ideals. It reminded me that we humans are not perfect. But, we CAN try to make progress.
A few lessons presented to me, in this recent past.
•. The Ego is a dirty rotten scoundrel. It keeps us from doing much in the way of spiritual growth. It is more than just contemptible and obnoxious. Once we “believe” we are the cat’s meow, we lose our ability to improve. To learn, to progress. We should try to stay vigilant of this.
• Our spiritual path ( or whatever you want to call it… being a better person, doing the right thing, keeping your nose to the grindstone, having your toast face butter-side up when it falls on the floor ) is not one of Perfection, it is Progress.
• It isn’t always easy to meet the expectations we hold ourselves to. Again, awareness of this is important. And then we move forward.

So. Whatever it is we do today, we should remember that we are our GOOD selves. We truly are beautiful beings. And we should remind our heads and our hearts, to keep on the path. To progress. To move forward. To grow.

And when we grow, we touch so many lives around us. And that is good.

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“Too late, I found you can’t wait to become perfect, you got to go out and fall down and get up with everybody else.”
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

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“To do better is better than to be perfect.”
― Toba Beta

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“There are two kinds of perfect: The one you can never achieve, and the other, by just being yourself.”
― Lauren King

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