Perfect Is Overrated

We live in a world obsessed with perfection. Perfect bodies, perfect homes, perfect careers, perfect relationships and, thanks to social media, apparently perfect lives where everyone wakes up looking fabulous, drinks something green and spends their afternoon accomplishing more before lunch than I managed in an entire week.

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing looking good with being good. We put enormous effort into polishing the outside while paying far less attention to what is happening underneath. But here is the inconvenient truth: the world doesn’t need more perfect people. It needs better people.

It needs dependable people. The kind who say they will be there and actually show up when the time comes. Not just when it is convenient, when they are in the mood or when there is a photograph involved. Dependable people are not always impressive. Sometimes they are the person quietly sitting beside a friend in a hospital waiting room, fixing somebody’s flat tire in the rain or checking on an elderly neighbour because they noticed the curtains hadn’t moved all day. They may never receive an award for it, but when life gets ugly, they are the people you want standing beside you.

The world needs honest people, too. Not people who use “I’m just being honest” as an excuse to be cruel, but people who can tell the truth without using it as a weapon. Honest people admit when they screwed up. They don’t spend three paragraphs explaining why their mistake was actually somebody else’s fault. They don’t rewrite history to make themselves look like the hero. They simply say, “I was wrong.” Those three words can be surprisingly difficult to get past the lips. Pride seems to have a particularly stubborn grip on the human tongue.

It needs kind people, especially when kindness has become confused with weakness. Kindness is not weakness. It takes very little strength to kick someone when they are already down. It takes considerably more character to reach down and offer a hand. Sometimes kindness is buying a coffee for someone who looks like they are having a lousy morning. Sometimes it is listening instead of judging. Sometimes it is giving someone a second chance when they probably don’t deserve a third. None of it requires perfection. It requires paying attention.

And then there is courage. Not the movie version where someone charges into a burning building while dramatic music plays in the background. Real courage is often much quieter. It is speaking up when everyone else is silent. It is walking away from something that is hurting you. It is defending someone who isn’t in the room to defend themselves. It is starting over at an age when people tell you that you should know better. Most of all, it is having the courage to look honestly at yourself and recognize the things that need changing.

Because we are all going to screw up. Every one of us will say the wrong thing, make the wrong choice, hurt somebody unintentionally and occasionally make a decision so spectacularly stupid that, years later, we will wonder what the hell we were thinking. That’s called being human. The measure of our character isn’t whether we fall. It is what we do after we hit the ground. Do we stay there blaming everyone else, or do we get back up, own our mistake, learn something and perhaps help the next person avoid the same hole?

Perfection is an impossible target. There will always be somebody smarter, richer, younger, fitter, more successful or better at pretending they have their shit together. Chasing perfection is like trying to catch the horizon. You can spend your entire life running towards it and never get one step closer.

Character, however, is something different. Character is built in the small decisions nobody applauds. It is how we treat people who cannot do anything for us. It is whether our word means something. It is whether we help someone back onto their feet instead of taking pleasure in watching them fall. It is what remains when the filters disappear, the applause stops and nobody is watching.

So forget perfect.

Be someone people can count on. Be honest enough to admit when you’re wrong, kind enough to help someone who is struggling and courageous enough to do the right thing when the wrong thing is easier.

Because when this life is over, nobody will care how perfectly you played the part. They will remember how you made people feel when you were in the room. And that is a far better legacy than perfection could ever be.