The Gifts of Imperfection

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“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and wrong. Sometime in your life, you will have been all of these.” – Buddha

The other day at work, I jumped in to help my colleagues with a project to create order from a bunch of data. In the course of an afternoon, we had so many emails, spreadsheets and versions flying around that my inbox was overflowing. Finally at one point I stated to a colleague that I didn’t have the version he was talking about. He forwarded an email sent to me 2 hours earlier that had the version.

I was mortified. I hate that particular kind of mistake that could have been prevented by a more detailed search of what I already had. It triggered the most unkind voice in my head.

I’d really like to do this all perfectly but fortunately I’ve had many years to come to terms with the fact that I’m far from perfect and never will be. Also on the plus side, I’ve learned a technique from my meditation teacher to create some space when I bump up against this.

It’s simply to talk to myself as if it were a friend that had made the mistake. It’s pretty easy to realize that I wouldn’t chastise a friend who had done the same. I’d say things like:

“Oh, I’ve done that before. It’s frustrating.”

“At least you didn’t send it to the customer with the wrong data. You stayed curious and kept asking questions.”

“Missing one spreadsheet in twenty? Not a bad ratio!”

Several times I’ve heard the Biblical instruction “Love your neighbor as yourself” turned around to be “Love yourself as your neighbor.” There is a lot of wisdom in not only cultivating kindness to others but also ourselves.

(featured photo from Pexels)

11 thoughts on “The Gifts of Imperfection”

  1. Good points to remember. Self talk can be so cruel. We’re often harder on ourselves than we’d ever be on anyone else. The empathy and grace we extend to others should be extended toward ourselves as well. Thanks for the reminder.

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  2. Hateful Self talk leads many to project their negativities onto others, while people who have developed positive self talk tend to spread that outwardly to others!

    I know it’s a generalization, but I have observed it to be true! I secretly think that if we each were to develop positive self talk then the world would be in a better place!

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  4. Gosh this reminds me of work from yesteryear. I tried to install a new system where we would post the latest version on a intranet platform to avoid all these rendudant emails but no. They much preferred sending redundant emails.

    Sigh.

    Also, point taken. 😊

    Liked by 1 person

  5. We all make mistakes and they help us grow wiser. Practicing kindness with ourselves when we falter, big or small, is so important. And sounds like you have a winning approach!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I heard a self-compassion researcher say that our inner critic is trying to get ahead of what anyone else might dream up of saying so it can beat them to the punch. So yes, practicing kindness and telling our inner critic it can stand down is important!

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