Our lives will always be imperfect. And that’s the good news.

Our lives are, and always will be, imperfect. 

They are constantly under construction. 

We are constantly building who we are and what we want to experience. 

We are constantly constructing a life that conforms to our values and visions. 

But we have to come to terms with the fact that the building will never be complete. 

We’re never going to get to a place where no renovations are needed. 

We’ll never get to that place where we’ve figured everything out, got everything down, where we’re just doing all the right stuff and none of the self-defeating stuff. 

That place of perfection doesn’t exist. 

And it’s a good thing, too: because if that place of perfection existed, we’d lose all opportunities to course correct. 

It’s in course correcting that we learn. 

It’s in fixing mistakes and missteps that we figure out who we are and what we need. 

It’s in striving for new goals and heights that we get clear about the kind of life we want to build from here. 

Thank GOODNESS our lives will always be imperfect. 

Can you imagine how unsatisfying a perfect life would be? 

If we just built the life we imagined years ago— when you were a different person, with different experiences, different needs, different goals, and maybe even different values— and that was it? 

See, a lot of us get it in our heads that we want to figure things out, make the progress, get the life— you know, get the romantic partner, get the skillset, get the job, get the bank balance, whatever— and then sit back and enjoy it. 

We figure that we’ve been through enough pain, enough trauma, in our lives, that all we want to do is figure stuff out and then rest. 

We figure that we’ve spent more than enough time being dissatisfied, that all we really want to do is achieve that moment of satisfaction, and make it last. 

The thing is, in constructing that life— in moving toward that vision— we discover new things that we’re interested in. 

We add to and refine our vision of “the good life.” 

We learn about new potential goals. 

We meet other people who show us things that we never even thought about. 

We change as people along the journey…and, as a result, our initial vision of what “the good life” might have entailed, no longer fits. At least not perfectly. 

That’s what happens in the real world. 

As you get better, as you recover, as you build the life you’d prefer to live, as you refine your tools and skills, you change. 

Along the way we realize that we are on a journey— but it’s not a journey toward one, single, defined destination. 

The point isn’t even to GET to that destination. Not exactly. 

The point is to get really good at journeying. 

The point is to learn how to draw satisfaction from the journeying. 

And we can. 

We can draw SO MUCH satisfaction from this journey we’re all on. 

Not just satisfaction, either. We can draw SO MUCH passion, and joy, and humor, and drama, and, yes, pain and heartache, too, from this journey. 

So you’ve realized you’ll never hit that place of perfection, of fully realized therapeutic and spiritual wholeness? 

Good. 

That’s the first step to figuring out how to REALLY win in this project called life. 

 

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