Choose Resilience, Not Perfection

How much of your life has been lost to chasing perfection?

How much joy have you relinquished?

How much of your sanity have you compromised?

How much of your humanity has it cost to try to become inhuman?

I mourn the loss of the years I spent devoted to perfection.

The perfect body, the perfect grades, the perfect résumé.

Each new season of life brought with it a new benchmark for perfection. And with each attempt to reach that benchmark, I sacrificed more and more of my soul.

I lost myself searching for perfection.

How many of us do that?

How many times have you heard, “You know there’s no such thing as perfect, right?” yet you’ve held steadfast to the belief that if only you tried hard enough, it would be.

We see women who seem to have the perfect life, the perfect body, the perfect relationship, the perfect career and we mistake the exterior for the interior.

We assume that anything with a shiny veneer must be just as shiny on the inside, forgetting that it’s often the people who seem the most put-together who feel the most broken on the inside.

When it comes to perfection, logic is eclipsed by emotion. And it’s not our fault.

We've been brainwashed into thinking that if we can achieve, or at least get as close as possible to whatever society deems as perfect, that we will somehow awaken to our own worthiness and everything will be okay.

When you finally have the body, you can love yourself.

When you find the guy, you’ll know you’re worthy of love.

When you make partner or get the corner office, you’ll know you’ve made it.

Made it where? Where do we make it if we lose ourselves along the way?

Let’s not forget: We never asked for this message.

We never actually asked for perfection to become our collective North Star, but here we are, at a crossroads where we can decide to choose another path.

Instead of worshipping at the altar of perfection, why don’t we devote ourselves to resilience?

Let’s cultivate the strength to weather the storms that surround us on a daily basis.

Let’s develop the fortitude to not give into temptations that feel good now, but hurt us later.

Let’s practice getting back up and still loving ourselves even when we fall short.

Resilience means forgiving yourself, practicing grace, and above all, staying true to the calling of your soul rather than being seduced by a lie that promises so much and returns so little.

So let me ask you: How far are you willing to go to betray yourself in the name of perfection?

How much of yourself, how much of your life are you willing to keep losing to this phantom you’ve been worshipping?

And if you knew for sure that every second you devote to your quest for perfection is a second wasted, would you keep going?

When given the choice (and you always have the choice, my love), choose resilience, not perfection.