I GIVE THANKS FOR LIFE’S IMPERFECTIONS
We really do need to be thankful that life is full of
imperfections. This subject was brought to my attention last week when I looked
at my Peace Lily- I only have one Peace Lily & 3 baby Cacti in a triple
tray on top of the microwave- they’re quite safe I promise! The Lily, I named
Robo- a derivative of robust seeing my last houseplant died and I'm persuading Robo to do better, has a very poorly
leaf. In fact, the leaf is literally half dead so I was contemplating cutting
it off and then I thought about the other part which is very obviously half
alive! I would have to cut through the living tissue to remove the dead and
that seemed a little painful so I sat back and considered the implications of
this instead.
Imperfection is what makes this a perfect world and
therefore we need to give thanks for it. If this were not so we would be a very
sorry human race indeed. Where the leaf is concerned something went wrong
otherwise it would have withered and fallen, instead of which it is actually
very healthy in part, providing an excellent, direct comparison with us as
people. Not one of us can profess to be perfect and there are parts of our past
that we would dearly love to eliminate. Not being biblical here by talking
about sin, but I am speaking about our personal conscience. Last week we looked at identifying our talents. At the same time we need to identify our moral
standing so we know what is acceptable to us and what is not. Once we have a
firm moral ground our thoughts, words and actions are either in or out of sync. They will meet with our approval or, alternatively, make us
feel ill at ease and maybe resentful of our behaviour: possibly we fail to
understand why we did what we did! This is not a good place to be but being a
human trait we will go there from time to time simply because we are free to
make choices.
So why choose not to cut that ‘bad’ part of our lives off?
The answer is, at that point in time for some unknown reason we needed to do
what we did and may well have learnt a new lesson because of it. Very often we
repeat certain behaviours, so need to learn new patterns that enable our lives
to ‘bloom’ again.
Imperfection adds the ‘interest’ factor to our personalities.
If you study supermodels many of them have flaws which are regarded as quaint or
appealing- very often the most obvious candidates are passed over for a more
individual look. Different is good and imperfection makes us interesting.
Bad boy turned good is always a wonderful story but
unfortunately most women cannot change the bad boy and would be better off
without him! Imperfections often play a part in helping us find our way in the world.
This is why youngsters do so many things that adults have warned them against.
The ‘battle scars’ they acquire either internally or externally add character
and often provide memories of a daring youth; a time when they felt very alive,
the feelings adding value to life despite their actions being socially
unacceptable.
Imperfections can give rise to amazing discoveries.
Accidents have accounted for quite a bit of our scientific understanding of the
world- amazing new recipes, great works of art and sometimes the discovery of
our own talents. Doing things by accident rather than by design can transform
your life. I have created my current life pretty much by accident as I had no
knowledge of the internet and was researching a couple of people. The net said
‘do you want to join Myspace?’ So I did and in many ways completely upset life
as I knew it by paying too much attention to this new world and not enough on
the domestic front. Yes, that was definitely a huge blemish in my life at the
time- the equivalent of the dead leaf, but all finally worked out well and I
have a new direction in life as a result. Had I stopped using the net to keep
the peace things would be very different and considerably less stimulating!
So give thanks for imperfections. You can accept others as
equals because we are all imperfect, you can make mistakes and the world will
still turn, you might discover something quite remarkable through error and
finally, imperfection adds interest to life itself and everything in our
universe.
Jaz McKenzie
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