The Average Human

The average human isn’t perfect. We were made that way, we stumble, we fall, and we get back up. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to make mistakes. Even though most people will disagree, it really is. If we never made mistakes, how would we learn? We would all be a bunch of arrogant pricks running around with inflated egos. We’d probably never take the time to teach and learn from other people.

If you’re anything like me, you probably strive for perfection every single day. It’s a tiring job, trying to be perfect (It’s also irrational considering we never will be perfect). Yet we strive for it anyways.

Nobody likes to mess up and anybody who tells you otherwise, is a big fat liar. Nobody likes to be the one who screwed something up. It’s not a good feeling to know that you let someone down. But here’s the thing, we are too hard on ourselves. We live in a society where perfection is expected and nothing less. They expect you to have the perfect body, the perfect looks, the perfect job, and the perfect family. They basically have us striving for something that doesn’t exist. Life is messy; it’s never going to be perfect. No matter what you do, your kids will make a mess, and they will disappoint you, and they will mess up, but if you can see past all that, they will also bring you greater joy than you could have imagined. All those messy moments of childhood, the time they drew on the wall, or finger painted the table with pudding, will become memories of the good times. Those are the days of innocence and fun that you can never get back once they grow up.

In our pursuit of perfection, we don’t realize that we are often missing out on the moments that really count. Yes, it’s good to strive to be something better, but when you do that are you forgetting to take a moment and just breathe? Are you enjoying the curveballs that life throws your way? If you haven’t learned the great secret of life yet, I’m about to share it with you: LIFE NEVER TURNS OUT THE WAY YOU PLAN. Sure, your general idea might come true, marriage, kids, job, family, etc. But you might have it planned out to the T what you want in life, and I guarantee you, probably 10/10 times, those plans won’t come true.

The smart people learn to accept that, and they see that usually the parts they didn’t plan are the best parts of their lives. The not so smart people grumble and complain and talk about how nothing turned out the way they wanted, they choose to be unhappy and unaccepting. They’re being selfish, thinking only of themselves and the map they laid out for their life. People like that need to take a step back and look at what their life has really become. They need to appreciate the moments where they laughed so hard they couldn’t breathe, or the day they spent lying on the beach listening to the crash of waves and soaking in the warm sun on their skin. They need to remember that even though they didn’t plan on being a parent, they are, and those precious moments with their child are what they’ll remember in the later years. Not the long nights working overtime to get a big paycheck. They need to see the good instead of the bad.

Don’t live an empty life of fake perfection. Learn to accept the messy moments, learn to love and appreciate them. It’s in those moments that we have the chance to truly become who we want to be. We are able to learn from our mistakes and grow and become better. I’m not saying don’t strive to be better, because we should all have that ultimate goal, but we need to remember that it’s okay to mess up, it’s okay to fail so badly at something that you can’t imagine how to make it better. Don’t be so hard on yourself, remember to take a step back and give yourself a pat on the back for all the hard work you put in. When you’re up close it’s hard to see the progress you’ve made, but when you step back and look at the big picture, you will see that you actually are doing well. You’re doing better than you think, I promise. So don’t beat yourself up, learn to celebrate the small victories, because those are the ones that matter most.

^Human-Christina Perri