You can live a life of happiness, you just have to do the opposite of what society tells you to do.

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The Familiar Story of a Perfectionist

I've been a perfectionist for pretty much my whole life and by that measure my life should be perfect right? Absolutely not! In fact, it is far from that. If you judge by conventional measures of success such as having a high paying job, large house, luxury car or even a hot wife, then I am an absolute failure.
I have none of the above, not even close, in fact I'm quite the opposite (although I'm not homeless yet).

So now that we've established that I'm not perfect, what was the point of being a perfectionist if it never led to this so called road of perfection? I've got to make a bit of a confession, whilst I was chasing this notion of perfection, my life did have all those material tokens of success, just not to the extent that was deemed perfect.

The result of chasing perfection led me down a dangerous path of actually losing it all. Let me elaborate, I had a great job that was flexible, paid pretty well, and allowed me to learn a lot about life. In addition to a cushy job, I had the perfect partner (only realized this in hindsight) and was living in a swanky apartment in the middle of the city. What more could I possibly want? You guessed it, perfection. I wanted a better, high paying job, hotter girlfriend and a swankier apartment. So what do you do when you have these types of compulsions? You leave what you had and you look for something better, something more perfect.

In the end, I lost it all, as you do.

Redefining the Paradox

So what was the moral of my story? Well for starters we all know that perfection doesn't exist, right? Wrong! It does exist, it just depends on how you define it. It's just that in most cases our definition of perfection is often the result of someone else's influence, i.e. societal norms, familial expectations etc.

Perfectionists have a tendency to be compulsive. They act as if nothing is ever good enough, that there is always something to fix or add to make things perfect. When you think about it on a deeper level, this compulsion arises from a feeling of inadequacy that they need to prove to the world that they are better than they really are. The truth is, if they truly believe that things are never good enough (including themselves) then they will never be "perfect".

Yes, I was exactly like that, and even to this day I have remnants of this perfectionist's curse. So what's the cure? How do you stop chasing something that constantly eludes you and destroys you at the same time?

Like any good paradox, the answer lies in doing the exact opposite. So if chasing perfection leads to a life of unhappiness, then accepting imperfection attracts a life of happiness. Just let that thought linger for a moment.

Is your mind blown? Mine was, when I realized just how simple this is.

All I did was to reverse the key words and boom, my life was instantly happier, and dare I might say, perfect.

You see, chasing or pursuing implies that something is eluding you, so by accepting that "something", you allow it to stay or come to you (i.e. attract). Just imagine, from far away there is someone or something chasing you, would you want to stay or run for your life?

As an idea is only as good as its practical application, let's apply this to life. How does accepting imperfection attract happiness? You can see that this recipe of perfection is comprised of two parts: definition and acceptance, let's look deeper.

Defining Perfection

As I mentioned before, perfection is about how you define it. Do you accept someone else's definition of perfection or do you accept your own definition? If the former, you will likely find yourself constantly chasing an ever elusive definition. However, if it is the latter then perfection can ALWAYS be achieved because you can choose what to accept as perfect or not.

You have to understand that there is actually no such thing as perfect or imperfect. There are just things. Whether or not these "things" are perfect or imperfect really comes down to how you define them. For instance, my definition of finding the perfect job could be one that pays enough for me to feed myself yet gives me the freedom to travel the world (my current "perfect" job), conversely this job could be the worst or imperfect by someone else's definition.

Mind you, there is nothing wrong with pursuing something better. It really comes down to empowering yourself to take control of what you define as perfect, rather than being a victim of someone else's ideals. Just know that the wider this distance between the notion of perfection and reality, the more you will chase and fall victim to this paradox of perfection.

Acceptance Attracts Happiness

Now the real game changer is learning to accept things the way they are. Just imagine a time where you felt immense happiness, whether that's watching a beautiful sunset or having your first meaningful kiss. These moments are perfect right? You didn't think to yourself "If only the Sun was a bit to the left so I can take a selfie with it", or "If only they were 2 inches taller so I didn't have to bend down to kiss them". Of course not, these moments were perfect simply because you accepted them for what they are. || The truth is 99.99% of the time, the ideas we have in our head about how something 'should be' never match up with reality exactly, there will always be an element that could be improved or fixed.

It's about realizing that life will always be imperfect in some way, shape or form, and that's ok. We just need to learn to accept and appreciate things for the way they are. When you start accepting life for what it is (yes, even the bad times) that you can begin to attract more happiness in this chaotic world.

At the end of the day, this whole game of life is not even about perfection, it's about happiness. We've just been conditioned to believe that perfection leads to happiness, when it actually leads to a vicious loop of unhappiness.

So take control of your definitions and learn to accept life in all its glorious imperfections, this is perfect happiness~

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