Joys of Imperfection

Once upon a time, I wanted a per­fectly clean desk, library-orderly shelves, and every­thing filed neatly in alpha­bet­i­cal order in a metal fil­ing cab­i­net. I actu­ally got close to that once (though it took two sec­re­taries and untold hours of shuf­fling papers and books to accom­plish it). Orga­ni­za­tion added to per­fec­tion­ism becomes obsessive-compulsive shuf­fling minus pro­duc­tiv­ity. Since then I have learned to cel­e­brate office imper­fec­tion. It is amaz­ing what buy­ing a big­ger trash con­tainer will do for office orga­ni­za­tion. I almost wor­ship the office trash can. Using it gen­er­ously has sim­pli­fied my life and has brought me a lot of joy. Other than my birth cer­tifi­cate, pass­port, and social secu­rity card, the rest can go.

Out­ward exces­sive neat­ness can be a sym­bolic way of try­ing to make a per­fect inter­nal real­ity. It does not work of course, but peo­ple try it any­way. The inte­rior life is filled with mis­cel­la­neous facts, images, words, feel­ings, and mem­o­ries that seem to have no real work­ing order. We sort through it all with amaz­ing abil­i­ties of dis­cern­ment at light speed to have clear thoughts and actions. If think­ing did not involve a lit­tle clut­ter, we would be machines instead of peo­ple. Liv­ing peace­fully within vary­ing lev­els of inner chaos is an art and a bless­ing. You accom­plish it by being still, rather than by expend­ing ener­gies in the illu­sion of putting it all into some imag­i­nary per­fect work­ing order.

I like work­ing with imper­fect peo­ple. It keeps every­thing inter­est­ing. Some of my most chaotic friends are equal to any com­edy the­ater pro­duc­tion. I am care­ful not to try to fix them. It is their job to find a work­ing arrange­ment within them­selves. There might be some chance that I can help by lis­ten­ing, but ulti­mately every­one has to solve the inner and outer “stuff” phe­nom­e­non in their own way. As I mature, I tend to over­look more triv­ial things and ignore the per­fec­tionisms of oth­ers. Sooner or later, life gets sorted out by neces­sity (health con­cerns, car wrecks, and job losses). Things hap­pen that make you ask your­self why you have wasted so much time try­ing to “clean up God’s act” in the cre­ation that includes mod­i­fied chaos.

Any­thing per­fected tends to go onto the next life (like Jesus and his res­ur­rec­tion). I am not ready to go yet. My imper­fec­tions keep me here…like they do you. Enjoy the tem­per you have not mas­tered and the dozens of other minor and major incon­sis­ten­cies of your life. They give you some­thing to work on as you learn what it is to be fully human. Be the mess you are and enjoy it. You are saved by grace and not your self-generated perfectionisms.