Perfecting the art of Perfectionism

      I have always been the naturally rebellious type, but rarely for the sake of mischief. I can actually say it was the opposite effect. I rebelled against things that were harmful for personal growth and reflection. Didn’t follow the crowds or ever feel affected by peer pressure. From a very young age, I had no problem making up my own mind. Perfection was always one of those things that drove me mad, because perfection is nearly impossible. In a religious context, I was taught that God was perfect and since we could never be God, we could never be perfect, but instead should chase perfection in an effort to be as close to God as possible.

 For a while I did chase perfection. Always wanting straight A’s, wanting to be the best, writer, the best athlete, the most creative. It was not uncommon for me to get overwhelmingly jealous when I came across individuals who were more talented than me in the areas I strived to do well in. My first meltdown happened in the 7th grade when I worked tirelessly for weeks on a project for my joint history and language arts class. I got a B on the entire project, but my classmate received an A on the same project that I had watched him throw together in a matter of two days, in class of all places. I was livid. I argued with my teacher for nearly two hours about how unfair this was, all the while she was trying to explain to me that while the details of my project were more thorough, his illustrations were more neatly put together. Since the project was more visually focused and less about the information I would have to accept the lower grade. I was devastated. From that point on I felt, “What’s the point of breaking your back in an effort to try to achieve perfection, only to be outdone by someone with a poorer work ethic but more talent.”  I know this is pretty heavy stuff for a 7th grader to be thinking about, but that is what chasing perfection will do to you.

As I got older, I got more and more frustrated with measuring myself to increasingly difficult standards. So I stopped making perfection the goal and shunned the idea all together. Chasing perfection encourages input from way too many people on what the best methods of “being perfect” are. Coming into my quintessential rebellious teen years, I no longer had a desire for anyone else’s input. I still strived to do my best, but did not beat myself up for not being the best. This mentally alleviated a lot of self-inflicted pressure and stress but it also left me open to making mistakes that would take me years to recover from. Even after those mistakes I was still not ready to reconsider perfectionism. Why would I, when it was virtually unachievable?

As my thoughts on the creator changed and my perception of God became more centered on the relationship I have with myself, perfectionism started to become a necessity for achieving my goals, both materially and spiritually. Perfectionism is less about aligning yourself with the ideals of others, and more about putting forth your best effort for yourself. It’s about not being so quick to lean on our mistakes but instead, perfection is about always giving the God in you 150% of your effort. We will no longer be victims of circumstances, our vices, or be held captive to the behaviors of other people. When we chase perfection for ourselves we can never feel as if we are falling short of ourselves. We will always be improving within for the best possible outcome. We will ignore excuses, embrace challenges, and conquer goals. Perfection is nothing else but the continued commitment to oneself to be constantly improving and growing in the healthiest way possible. Traditionally, God is intended to complete us, to be there when we are lonely, to aid us in times that strength is needed. When we view God as an internal force not an external force, when we value ourselves in the same way we have been taught to value a higher power we are aligning ourselves with the idea of perfection. When we praise the God within us, we are chasing perfection, we are grasping it with every healthy step we take.

We must set personal goals, weekly, monthly, yearly, and remember to check in with ourselves and keep ourselves accountable. Perfection is the way we set boundaries for others, and raise the standards of how people are allowed to treat us. Ultimate love for self, manifest into the life we always wanted but never knew how to get. From careers to relationships, perfection will give us a higher sense of purpose. Chase your perfection, give yourself the love you deserve, and obtain all your wildest dreams. Excuse the excessive use of the word “ourselves” but I have to drive home that you and I are a collective, and by being committed to our best selves we are committing to a better world simultaneously. Perfection has made a strong push back into my life and in my perfectly imperfect Virgo way, I welcomed it with open arms.

I Went Looking For God & Found The Universe

I was raised Christian. My domination is Baptist, and I honestly have no complaints regarding my childhood in church. My grandmother is easily the most religious person in my family. Far from a zealot, but she is the matriarch, the queen and we all obliged to make her happy. What we all know about Black Church is it can be a long day on those wooden benches, but it was always entertaining. From Sunday School with “Sister such and such”, to morning devotion, the hour long sermon, and last but not least the call to fellowship. I did it all from a youth usher, to the children’s choir. I enjoyed that so much I eventually upgraded to the women’s choir. I deeply appreciate the fundamental ideas instilled in me at church. It fined tuned my moral compass and created boundaries around my big heart.

I haven’t regularly attended church since I was 15. Nearly 11 years later, I have no plans to ever resume that ritual. I enjoy going once in a blue moon, it’s the nostalgia of it that draws me in. I love hearing gospel songs and an ambitious sermon, but the questions I started asking in my early teens would never be answered in church. “Why are there 3 offerings in one service?” “If the holy trinity is the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost, then where is the mother?” Most of the time I would be given long elaborate explanations that never really made sense or answered my questions, or simply told to stay in a child’s place.

In High School, I started learning the history of the Bible and how it was written in a dead language in a largely illiterate society. Which of course generated more questions. From that point I began an unconscious search for God. I read a lot of material about human spirituality, reading about Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. I learned that Islam is the most practiced religion in the world, and Hinduism also had a widespread following and it made me wonder. “How can someone go to hell when they never even knew Jesus existed?” I felt my way through some deeply spiritual moments, including sleeping under a blanket of stars on a boat in the Pacific Ocean.

During a bout of depression in my early 20s, where everything seemed too hard for no reason, I began praying and reading the Bible again. It was what I knew best.  I found parts of it to be absurd but I mostly found it to be inspiring. When I stopped trying to understand every verse in every chapter in every book, and instead viewed it from a general overview it read like a guide on unconditional love. From Job’s unconditional love of God, God’s unconditional love for his son, and Jesus’s love for the world. Every Bible story has an underlying theme of love conquering all obstacles. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 is still my favorite series of versus in the Bible. If God is love and love lives and is manifested inside of us, what does that make us? What about the other organisms on the planet? Since God created all that we know and see on this planet and beyond I started to look for God in the animals, in the plants, and in my child. I read more about science, math, and how it is ever present in everything we see.

I came to understand the universal order that encompasses not just humans, the planet Earth, and the galaxy, but the entire Universe surrounding us. So after years of unconsciously looking for God, I consciously came to the conclusion that God is an energy that flows through all living things from insects to stars. God lives in all of us, and we show our best love to God by showing the best love to ourselves and to each other. I am in no way suggesting that anyone should lose their religion and follow the ideals I have. I believe each of our relationships with that higher energy of influence is deeply personal. It should be shaped and defined in the way that works best for us on an individual level. For me, I find peace in believing that all religions can co-exist. That as long as the world keeps spinning and the sun keeps rising and setting that we are in flow with all things. I love the air I breathe, the people I meet, and pure simplistic beauty that surrounds us every day. I found God in the flower that grows in between the cracks on the sidewalk, and in the intricate patterns of butterfly wings. So what does God mean to you?