Does Perfection Exist?

 Hey everyone! Welcome back, I actually had planned something different for this week's post, however, today is GCSE results day so I thought I'd write a little something which can reassure everyone that they did great, even if you think you didn't. 

Perfection

What Actually is Perfection? 

The literal meaning of perfection is "The state or quality of being perfect" which isn't very useful. 

What is the meaning of perfect? The google definition of perfect is "having all the required or desirable elements, qualities or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be".

Society's Standards of Perfection

We as a society have obviously invented our own standards of perfection for different categories, for example, having perfect grades would mean you always get full marks all the time in every subject you do or having perfect skin which would mean you have no blemishes on your face. How realistic is this?

We are all humans (unless you're from a twilight book and you never told me) and is it even possible for us to be "perfect" in every manner?

Perfection During Coronavirus

I attend a pretty academic school that is full of very capable people and one thing I have noticed with many of the students is that everyone is constantly trying to be better than they were the day before. Especially with the education system we have in the UK and doing your GCSE's during a pandemic, that can really impact many of our journeys in academic growth and just any type of growth in general and coming back to school after multiple lockdowns had really impacted not only my grades but many other of my achievements. 

Over the pandemic, I lost a lot of motivation to stretch and therefore I lost a lot of flexibility for dance, I also found myself not wanting to work on a lot of my skills which I had developed through going to school, even things as small as wanting to be around people. I felt like I had lost all of the "perfection" which I spent years working for, I was in good sports teams at school, I had straight A* grades, I was eating a balanced diet and had a good work/play balance. After multiple lockdowns and some family deaths, I felt like I had lost all of the progress I had made. I felt as though these things were the only things that defined me as a person, as opposed to how I was as a person.

For quite a long time I have had an obsession with being "perfect" and I would often overwork my body and mind, whether it was pushing that stretch a little further in dance or staying awake till late at night trying to solve a maths problem. It seemed to have gotten worse after all the lockdowns were over and we were back at school. I found that even though I was working so hard, I was never seeing any results because I would always feel drained and out of energy, both physically and mentally. Going to a school surrounded by people who seemed effortlessly smart made me feel self-conscious because I felt like I could never keep up with the people around me when in reality, many were going through the same thing as me.

I am grateful that I have so many people around me who help me become the best version of myself and who are able to reassure me that what I am doing is enough and who I am is enough. I have slowly but steadily been able to move away from this mindset that has governed my life for the longest time and even though I do sometimes slip up and have the odd feeling of not being good enough, I remember that we are only human and it isn't possible to do better than your best.

The Truth About Perfection

Let's be real, we all know it isn't possible to be perfect in every aspect of your life, and nobody is expecting that of you either. Perfection doesn't exist without imperfection and we can only learn from life if we have imperfection. If we have imperfections in our life, we are able to improve ourselves and grow. This might sound cheesy but we all know, it is about the journey, not the destination. While we are on the journey of life, we will have many moments where we make mistakes but these mistakes are what can teach us so much. Mistakes teach us to persevere in life, they teach us how to handle doing things in different ways and seeing from different perspectives and they also help you become better at what you were working on in the first place.
Even if you were to achieve "perfection" in one thing, like beauty, the idea of perfection is subjective. For example, the idea of perfection to a businessman would be to have a successful company and make lots of money through it, however, the idea of perfection for a doctor may be to be able to treat as many patients as they can and to help the people around them. Neither of these views are wrong, they're just different and there is nothing wrong with that because we are humans are all such different individuals and that should be celebrated.

Conclusion

I pretty much tried to make this point very evident throughout this week's entire post, but I am going to say it again, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PERFECTION. My reasoning behind this is that it is impossible to be 100% of something, for example, you cannot be fully good or fully bad as neither can exist without the other. Similarly, perfection cannot exist without imperfection and since it is such a subjective idea, it simply doesn't exist. If you haven't already heard this today I want to tell you all, I am so so so proud of everyone and where they have come to in life, whether you signed the biggest contract of your life or you managed to get out of bed and brush your teeth. YOU ARE ENOUGH.

I hope you guys enjoyed this week's post, if you are getting GCSE results back today, I wish you all the best and I just know you have all done amazing! In fact, I am going to wish you congratulations because I know you deserve it after a long, laborious year, love you guys and see you next week <33