Wise.
I was talking with a good (male) friend yesterday. We’re both in serious relationships and the discussion revolved around how some churches require marriage counseling before they’ll allow you to use the facility.
He said, “The best thing I ever discovered in my relationship was that she [his girlfriend] will never be perfect.”
I kinda cocked my eyebrow up at him for further explanation.
“If you expect perfection, you’ll be angry and disappointed. You have to treat someone like they’re human,” he said.
This conversation brought to light something I’ve struggled with for years: accepting mistakes simply as they are. Those phrases you hear so often, for instance, “water under the bridge,” or “no use crying over spilled milk” are actually good freaking bits of advice.
Learning to accept imperfection is the best (and certainly cliched) relationship tip I’ve received, and even though I’ve heard it all before, maybe this time it’ll actually stick.
Who cares about being perfect? I want someone interesting, and you can’t have a conversation with anyone unless they’ve made mistakes in life, lived through it and moved on.
I totally agree that you can’t expect people to be perfect and I try to keep that in mind in all interactions I have with people, and also keep it in mind when I’m being too hard on MYself, but the flip side of that is that you CAN expect people to try and improve that which is flawed about themselves because you should also be doing that. I think it’s your responsibility, when you realize that you have a problem, to try and ameliorate that problem. It doesn’t mean you’ll succeed, or that you’ll completely eradicate that flaw, or that you won’t grow three new ones while you’re not looking, but ongoing moral and emotional self-improvement is essential. Confession and absolution are meant to clear the slate to make room for a new direction, NOT to give you space to keep making the same mistakes over and over again. If you hurt someone and you know it and you’re sorry, their forgiveness is conditional upon you trying not to hurt them again. You will, of course, hurt them again, because that’s the nature of human relationships, to get back to the “no one’s perfect” thing, but if you do it in the same way, knowingly, that is wrong. It just is. It doesn’t make you a bad person, maybe, but it surely makes it more and more difficult for the people in your life to trust you and stick around.
I feel like I’ve spent these past few months in a moral black hole, because I don’t just want to do what is right for me, I want to do what is right PERIOD. I try very, very hard to be good and not be selfish, because selfishness is one of my biggest pet peeves in people. Of course we’re all selfish, including me, but I try hard not to be. And I feel like I’ve been getting a lot of advice from a lot of corners, and it appears to have settled on one extreme or the other, like a reverse bell curve, and I’m not sure I like either of these choices—sometimes I feel like option A is the best, the right thing, and sometimes I feel like option B is the best, and I can’t help but take other people’s feelings and situations into account, and I end up very confused and paralyzed and sad. I’m sick of feeling like I can’t trust people. I’m sick of whining to the Internet because I only have one friend who is willing to support me the way I need support and I can’t be bugging her all the time. I’m sick of this even still being an issue!
There’s this Ignatian spiritual theory, that we all move in and out of periods of consolation and desolation. Loyola defines desolation as the “darkness of the soul, turmoil of the mind, inclination to low and earthly things, restlessness resulting from many disturbances and temptations which lead to loss of faith, loss of hope, and loss of love. It is also desolation when a soul finds itself completely apathetic, tepid, sad, and separated.” I don’t want to be all emo about this, but I feel like my life is generally moving through a period of desolation. I guess I should just accept this and look for ways to find answers in the darkness.
3 years ago • 25 notes
