I might as well get all the adoration thatperfectionism deserves. Sainthood seemed to fit the bill. Unfortunately, I kept
slipping up—I would forget to make my bed or get jealous of my little brother,
and then sink into despair, convinced I was a complete failure.
Ah, perfectionism! Those of us afflicted with the pesky bug may look with
amazement (You mean you don’t care you didn’t do it perfectly??) or disdain
(What kind of lazy, good for nothing guy are you?) upon those who don’t suffer
from it, but the truth is, of course, that it springs from our own sense of lack.
We simply don’t believe we’re good enough as we are in our humble, human,
imperfect state, and must therefore compensate by being Miss Perfect Goody-
Two-Shoes.
That was certainly true for me. Somehow, as a child, I got the message that
if only I did everything perfectly, life would be OK. But life has a way of being
messy and imperfectable, despite our best efforts, and individuals, including
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myself, are equally incapable of perfection. After decades of sainthood wannabes,
I finally got worn out from trying. Now, instead of attempting to make everyone
and everything fit my plan (an impossible task, even for a saint), I spend the
energy I used to use in sainthood school to be more grateful.
Because perfectionism is born of a sense of inadequacy, a lack, an attitude of
gratitude counteracts it by tapping us into the experience of abundance. Gratitude
makes our world feel complete and right. When we feel the fullness of gratitude,
we accept life just as it is—however messy, complicated, and drawn-outside-the-
lines that may be.
Gratitude not only helps us accept that the world is imperfect, but that we
are too—and that’s OK. For when we pour the oil of appreciation for life in all
its imperfections over our experience, we ourselves can’t help but be anointed.
Suddenly seized by joy for the crazy, mixed-up world, we recognize ourselves as
part of that world, and take our rightful place as a child of the Universe, perfectly
acceptable in all our imperfection.
So if you’ve been bitten by the “P” bug, try the gratitude antidote and see
whether it helps you give yourself a break.
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The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be.
—Shakti Gawain
Have you ever met someone so bitter and resentful about their life that they feel
like a black hole sucking away all the energy around them? Whether we call them
pessimists, ingrates, or those who always see the glass as half-empty, they are a
drag to be around. So focused on what hasn’t worked for them, how life or other
people have mistreated them, they can’t see all the ways they have been the recipi-
ents of gifts, blessings, and wonderful surprises.
Most of us aren’t total black holes, but when we fail to give thanks for what
happens in our lives, we can get hung up in bitterness that prevents us from
developing emotionally and spiritually. If we fail to grow, the light inside us
grows dim. Gratitude is an inner light that we can use to illumine our souls. The
more we are thankful, the more light we experience and the more we shine forth
into the world.
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If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.
—Henry Miller
A perennial dieting tip is to eat something and then wait twenty minutes before
deciding to eat something again. The reason is that your body needs that much
time to register that it is full. If you keep eating without pausing, you will not
realize that your body is full, and therefore you may overeat.
Giving thanks for what we have in our lives is like that pause when eating. It
allows us to feel full, to register on the emotional and spiritual level that we have,
in fact, been given “enough.” If we don’t practice gratitude on a daily basis, it’s
easy to overconsume, to feel a lack and to try to fill that lack through possessions,
because on a psychological level we haven’t registered that we already have what
we need.
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That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.
—Emily Dickinson
Last night I watched my daughter Ana, whom we recently adopted from China,
lie on the bed in an ecstatic trance of bottle sucking. Her eyes closed, her rosebud
mouth pursed, her exquisitely long fingers curled around the plastic bottle, she
gave herself over to the experience. She wasn’t obsessing on past wounds,
although perhaps she had a right to. Neglected for over a year, when we got her
she had been covered with second-degree burns on her buttocks from lying in
urine. Nor was she worrying about where the future bottles might come from,
although she had a right to do that also. Abandoned on Christmas evening on
a cold street until someone heard her newborn cries, she had been fed only
watered down milk and seemed to be starving the first few weeks we fed her.
Rather, she was so focused on appreciating the warm milk as it went down
