A couple of days ago Gretchen Rubin, one of my favourite happiness gurus, proposed that we, as part of a new year reflection, distil what we know about happiness into six succinct words.
My six words were inspired by an Oprah show I watched not long ago (totally lame, I know), featuring Jane Fonda. To tell the truth, I know next to nothing about Jane's seemingly lucrative career, but I don't think you need to be a fan to recognise the wisdom in the words she shared that day, on finding happiness and contentment as she gets older.
Jane: “It’s a toxic desire to try to be perfect. I realised later in life that the challenge is not to be perfect. It’s to be whole.”
Oprah: “Wouldn’t it be amazing if everybody… was able to make the shift to not have your life be about being successful or getting ahead? What if our entire culture rested on, ‘How do I become more whole?’”
Jane: “It would be a completely different world. You can’t be trying to be perfect and be whole. You have to know what’s wrong and say: ‘It’s okay. It’s all right.’”
Wholeness, not perfection, ignites my happiness.
For me, the difference between perfection and wholeness is the difference between myth and reality. Between striving and arriving.
Frankly, perfection just doesn't exist. What is perfection, after all? There are so many examples floating about, but no certainty at all of what it actually constitutes, even within cultures and generations and families. I don't know about you, but my definition of perfection changes on a day-to-day, often hourly, basis. So how can we be perfect if there is no such thing?
Furthermore, whether the perfect specimen you strive to be is your third-grade teacher, your next-door neighbour, a character in your favourite novel or a famous actress, the perfection that we see, as outsiders, is, inevitably, only part of the story. The pain, struggles and shortcomings we are all forced to grapple with are dealt with behind closed doors - whether they amount to sleepless nights or relatives dying or marital problems or loneliness or crying infants or dangerous addictions or feeling helpless and ugly and incomplete. Because, no matter what we want to believe, no one person and no one life is perfect.
But whole... that is something that we can hope to be.Wholeness, for me, is searching for and finding validation within ourselves (rather than career ladders and academic transcripts and parental pride and marital status) and, in doing so, discovering who we are. Unburying our strengths, our weaknesses, our passions, what inspires us, what motivates us, what we like, what we don't, from beneath the guise and toppling weight of expectations and pressures and untruths about life and living. Heaving a great sigh of relief and relaxing into our perfect little crevice of life, finally letting go of the desire to mould ourselves into that uncomfortable, misshapen box pushed upon us.
And so instead of despairing that we are not thin or successful or attractive or funny or charming enough to personify our perception of perfection, we can rejoice in the fact that we are unique and alive to witness all the beauty that exists in this world. And that our weaknesses make room for strengths, and our pitfalls make room for new adventures. And if our only task in life is to be true to ourselves, to explore the peripheries of our own souls, then we can never fail, but we can most definitely succeed. And our success will only grow and evolve with time and age and wisdom. With those things comes the courage to be utterly true and raw in our hearts and, as a result, discovering the lengths of what we can do. Realising our potential, beyond the horizon of what we ever thought possible.
For isn't that what happiness is all about?
For isn't that what happiness is all about?
"may I be I is the only prayer-- not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong"
— ee cummings
7 comments:
what a stunning way to finish off a tuesday night!
i love the new blog so far - its literary gold.
xoxo loyal reader
Very inspiring post as always :)
Now I have to think of my own 6 words...
I'm so glad you're blogging again!
I love th enew blog and will continue to visit every day :)
Thank you both for your lovely words, means the world... xx
I absolutely love this idea, wholeness sounds so much more attainable than the ridiculous idea of perfection.
Thank you Kimberley!
Mmm ... I totally agree re the need to sidestep dreams of perfection (I can be a perfectionist and it takes its toll on my psyche). However I do also think it is important to strive for things, to try and achieve. I guess it is about balance - we need to know how much we can achieve and that we have the capacity to work hard to do that, but we also need to be able to read the signs and know when to simply chill out! I also think there is nothing wrong with mixing a little myth into reality - that's where fairytales and good stories and art and dreams come .
Absolutely, I am all for striving for greatness... and myths are lovely as long as we acknowledge they are just that. xx
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