The Abbott Family Blog

Very young children are curious and open to the world around them. They experiment with their vocal chords and limbs and gradually learn the two most crucial skills in life: walking and talking. They are not hindered by a fear of making mistakes; they jump right in and tackle the task at hand. As our cognitive ability awakens and we gather in wide learning, a contrast between this ‘known’ (our learning) and the unknown increases drastically and our insecurity mounts (this is one reason for the Buddhist and Taoist helpful hint to “desire not to desire, and learn to be without learning“). To compensate for the insecurity learning causes, we seek protection through perfection. This presents a curious evolutionary problem.

I’ve never found seeking or expecting perfection useful or empowering. Rather, the perfectionist approach misses opportunity’s daily knock on the door. Clinging to perfection is a hurdle to surmount before we can accomplish our private ends. We miss out on life when we are seeking, expecting, or hiding behind perfection’s secure walls. Frankly, if we approached life as perfectionists in early childhood we never would have learned to walk or talk.

Note: It is the seeking, clinging and expecting perfection that leads to difficulty. Working within perfection, moment to moment, is entirely different. Or as the Bhagavad-Gita (the ‘yoga bible’) puts it, “A harmony in eating and resting, in sleeping and keeping awake: a perfection in whatever one does. This is the Yoga that gives peace from all pain”.